FTW
by Runamuk
Summary: "So, let's see. Things are looking pretty bad. But, still… I guess it could be worse. Oh, no, wait. Wait a second. I was wrong." ZADF  more or less .
1. It's Snowing Dookie

_NOTE: Don't worry. You'll get tired half way through and stop reading before the brain shriveling even starts._

I T ' S S N O W I N ' D O O K I E

Flakes of fecal matter were drifting down from the clouds in little, itty-bitty, delicate pieces. Children looked up and smiled, opening their mouths and sticking forth their tongues despite the rancid stench. They were stupid, you see. When what invaded their taste buds did not melt, did not taste of purity and angels, their faces twisted with sick, and they gagged. They gagged in _horror_.

For God's sake, you snotty beasts! It's eighty-three degrees out! It's safe to assume that the stuff you licked off the car roof wasn't snow!

"How did _this_ come to be?" you might be asking.

Well, don't ask questions. Shut your filthy mouth.

As the townsfolk slowly came to their senses, expressions of wonder turned to panic. Then, for a short while, wonder again- but then more panic. People screamed. They ran in circles. They raided stores for canned corn and sold their stocks until the market imploded on its poor doomed self.

"Oh-! Ugh, Eewwr! The stink! The _stiiiink; Auugh_!"

One hysterical man collapsed in the street and started to convulse, mouth dribbling bubbles of foam.

Police officers were deployed from all over to investigate the horrible mass of raining defecation. The captain gave the order; _if we don't get to the bottom of this now_, _uh, ohh, the whole town will fall victim some sort of smeary, stinky…_poop_ death! And the pink eye! Think about all the pink eye! Stop it! Stop it nooooooow!_

A heartfelt speech if you ever did hear one.

Still, it was the excess of O's in that last "now" that really got his forces pumped. They took off in their police cars as fast as their low-budget engines would allow, swerving around the chaos and all over the city, not once caring that they had no leads and no idea where they were driving. They just went.

In the beginning, there were, oh, say, eight crashes. With each other. Two more cars were pummeled by street lamps, one with a building, another with a mailbox, and one more with a bee. Still, that left an inexplicably large pack of squad cars rushing, finally, toward the city cesspool.

Herp.

Anyway, the city cesspool was a huge, swirling mass of human waste churning in a tub roughly the size of New Mexico. Normally, it was fairly well-managed. But today- _today_ it had been transformed a massive cyclone of excrement. A big, brown, reeking tornado of fetid poop, if you will, piercing its way through thick black clouds and dropping deposits of itself _everywhere_. One cop turned on his windshield wipers, but that just- "Oh, my sweet_ banana cream pies_!" -that just made it worse.

"It's EVERYWHERE! Everywhere! And I was only _One. Day," _he bashed his head against the steering wheel, "from _retirement_!"

Head bleeding and possibly concussed, the police officer flung himself through the passanger side window, shattering the glass, and tumbling to his death at sixty miles per hour. His car exploded.

Horror.

"ZIM!" Meanwhile, Dib was standing in the eye of the storm, repressing vomit. "I won't let you -_blurrk_- get away with –_ughw_, _that stinks_- this!"

Zim grinned menacingly. "Nonsense, Dib-waste! Zim has already gotten away with it!"

Dib's eyes were watering, but he braved the nastiness and glared at Zim with all the hate he could muster. Zim only grinned wider, nearly dislodging the clothing pin from where it pinched the nonexistent nose between his eyes. He was wearing some sort of neon pink hazard suit, which should have made the pin obsolete if the lack of nose didn't already, but Zim wasn't particularly, you know, smart.

Although, Dib wasn't winning any fashion contests either. His shirt and pants had gotten filth on them, so he'd taken them off to avoid contamination. He stood in boxers and a trench coat, both of which clung loosely to his overly thin, pasty little body. He had a shower cap over his hair and goggles over his glasses, plastic bags around his shoes. He just wished he'd had the foresight to remember the nose plugs when he learned of Zim's new plan. Not that he'd been given much time to prepare.

But actually, the longer he stood there, the less he could smell anything anyway. Huh. That was pretty nice.

"By now I'm sure the filth is raining down all over this pa-the-tic planet, and soon enough everyone will perish from the _disgusting_ stench made by their own traitorous organ expulsions!" Zim burst into hysterical laughter, clawing the air and wheezing like a broken squeaky toy. It was honestly that funny.

"That's stupid! Humans don't die just from smell!"

"_You lie_!"

"And there's not enough waste here to coat the entire planet anyway! Maybe a town or two, but come on!"

"Silence, you ugly sack of meat…_ sack_!" Zim launched forward, howling a war cry at the top of his lungs. Dib stumbled away, startled, arching his back when he reached the wall of the storm. He jumped out of the way at the last minute and rolled onto his hands and knees. Zim screeched in frustration, jumping at him again. This time, Dib yelped, unable to dodge. They started to wrestle like monkeys, scratching and biting and rolling and hitting.

Dib tore a big gash in the front of Zim's suit, letting in the stink. Zim nearly gagged up a lung.

For a split second, they almost toppled into the mess, but the matching expression of disgust on their faces had them simultaneously scrambling back. Dib stumbled over his own heel and fell on his back. His elbow hit something. Hard. Yowling in pain, he cradled his arm to his chest. Zim, to his left, gasped. That elbow had bashed open and through the door of Zim's brilliant machine. His creation. His hard work.

"No!" He fell to his knees at the base of it. He snatched up wires as they dropped out of the new opening, sparking and smoking. It was no use. The Dib had busted the control board. "NO! Noooooo! _NOOOO_!" For such an significant experiment, you would think he would have protected the motherboard with something stronger than glass as thin as a stick of Winterfresh.

So, just like that, the cyclone started to slow. It tilted off kilter. Its walls started falling, teetering, _useless_. In one uproarious splash, like a waterfall suddenly stripped of its source, the waste dropped back into the cesspool. Filth flung out all over. It went over the walls, it landed on Zim's suit, on the back of Dib's coat and head and feet.

"You," Zim snarled, claws shaking furiously. His eyes narrowed to murderous slits. "_You_-! YOU!"

Dib crawled backwards on his hands, trying to mask his growing nervousness. "I told you I'd defeat you, you reptilian scum! And I always will! That's just another victory for Earth!"

Zim's body was coiled like a deadly spring, ready to snap. Dib cringed and hoped against hope that Zim wouldn't go for the face. "You _horrible_-!"

"FREEZE!"

Their eyes bugged.

"Heh?"

Zim and Dib turned simultaneously to the hoard of police cars and officers down below, pointing guns up at them from every angle. Dib found that his mouth started moving without consent from his brain, which was still in shock. "Well," Dib mumbled, "this has never happened before."

"Don't move! Hands above your heads!"

"Which is it? Do you want us not to move, or to put our hands above our heads?"

"Um. Hm. Err-gosh, brain teasers. Neither, I guess. Both!"

Zim blinked in confusion. "Zim does not have time for- YIEP!" His body snapped back when a bullet came biting at his foot. The urge to retaliate with a doom-laser was strong, but… too many humans. He grimaced and growled, "You think that puny Earth weapon can damage me? I am ZIM! I've used more powerful weapons than that to pry open GIR's head!" He yelled, and it was probably true. Another shot. He put his hands over his head.

Dib laughed. "Finally. You're getting what you deserve, Zim! They've got you surrounded. First they'll arrest you, and then they'll figure out you're an alien, and then it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to that autopsy table. Maybe they'll throw me a parade-"

"Quiet, fiend! You have broken the law, and that is most bad! Most bad!"

Zim sneered at the human in blue who'd spoken; he was climbing up the metal stairs to their podium, followed by several others, looking thoroughly undeterred by the filth. Zim whistled and discreetly kicked his broken machine into the pool, where it sunk. Dib scowled. The cop pulled out his handcuffs, slipping momentarily on a wet spot. One guy behind him fell in a puddle. "You two are in big trouble!"

"_Both_ of us?" Dib gaped. Zim made a pleased sound and stuck out his tongue.

"HAH! Victory for Zim_._"

"You're getting in trouble, too, moron!"

"Yeah, but…your head is big."

"My head is _normal sized_, okay? I _measured_!"

"Quiet!" The officer snapped the cuffs roughly around Zim's wrists, causing a grunt. When he looked up again, glancing at Dib, his face scrunched into something tight and confused. "Uh, hum." He scratched his head and turned to the others. "You guys have any extra cuffs?" The two cops shrugged. The first guy rubbed his face awkwardly, the other muttered something about giving them to his kid. "Hmm." He undid the set from Zim's wrist, to the aliens immense pleasure, but then snapped one side back on.

"Hey-what the-"

"Looks like you two'll have to share."

"_What_?"

"W-wait! This is wrong! I'm not a criminal; I was _saving the world_! ALIENS!"

"Fools! No frail pair of human _cuffies_ can contain ZIIIM, the almighty and masterful genius of the universe!" The cop pressed a button and the metal handcuffs lit up with barely restrained electricity. Swords and knives danced out of secret compartments like it was a utility knife, hovering centimeters over their skin as though saying, 'Go on- I dare yah.' "Huh. I guess they can. I AM NORMAL!"

"Yeah, yeah, we can all see that."

Dib groaned.

"Now _walk_."

Walk, they did. As they descended the stairs, being careful not to slip on the dripping layer of liquidized feces, the news vans pulled up. Dib groaned louder. Cameras swarmed in, snapping pictures. Zim scowled, clawing and biting at the flashes. Dib merely tried to hide his face. The headlines started spinning in.

'_Crazy Poop Boys Captured!' 'Hideous Dookie Mutants Spew Hate On Town!' 'POOP!' _and the like.

"You boys are going away for a _long_ time!"

Zim's eyes snapped open. "Exactly _how_ _long_ is a long time? I've got… _things_ that need doing. Normal, human things. Like blinking! And, uh…_chewing_!"

"He's lying! He's an alien! Just look at the way he italicized the word, 'things'! He's up to something!"

"Silence, _hu_man!" Zim hissed.

"Space refuse!" Dib crowed in reply.

"Earthen _maggot_!"

Zim snapped his fist back in preparation to punch, but Dib flinched away, thus yanking Zim's wrist along with him. With a surprised sound, Zim punched himself right square in the face. Dib blinked, then grinned, doing it again and again and again. Zim growled, staggering. He took his hand and jumped behind Dib's back, yanking up both their wrists until the chain crossed Dib's throat. He pulled.

"Uck-! Kk-! Can't…_breathe_!"

The police officers looked baffled. It must have been really hard trying to shove them both into the squad car while they were trying to kill each other. As Dib gasped for air, hands scrambling at his neck, he picked up his foot and slammed his heel down hard. Zim howled, hopping up to cradle his poor, abused, superior foot. Dib used the distraction to make a grab for Zim's wig.

He never got it.

"Well, well," said a gravelly, bemused voice. Dib grunted, body dangling in midair. He and Zim were hovering off the ground by the chain of their handcuffs. "If it isn't my greatest opponent. The young trespasser."

The ridge over Zim's eyebrow jumped up. "Eh?"

"I'll be taking over from here, men! Police Chief _Slab Rankle_ is on the case!"

AW snap.

The police gave salute. "Yes, Chief!"

Dib looked from Zim to Slab, suspicious. "You _know_ him?"

Slab put his free hand to his chin, visible eye growing hazy with the memories. He started to walk, forcing his captives along with him toward a huge black police van. "This young man here bested my defenses and my fabulous zombie army back when I was still a mall security guard. Those were good times- great times! When life was easy and the mall was my mistress to protect. Of course," his tone darkened, "Those days are gone. I've since been fired for being _'too possessed by the job!'_ and _'eating up finances'_ on '_unnecessary_ _lasers'_ and '_controversial corpse-reviving _technology' and '_number two pencils'_! Hah!" His fist trembled before his chest. "I was doing what needed to be done to protect that beautiful haven from defilement! But did they understand that? Huh? HUH? Well_, did they?_"

Zim looked highly taken aback. Slab was huffing in his face and demanding answers. "I'm gonna go with... yes?"

"NOO!" Slab snapped. "And since then, Slab has had to settle for _Chief of Police_."

Dib stared. Was this…Yeah, this guy was crazy.

"Ah, well. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I met you again, trespasser. I expected that I'd be given a second chance to _thwart_ my _nemesis_! And you've acquired yourself a partner in crime! Twice the challenge! You've been taken in once more by that evil temptress… _Transgression_!" A rather hefty chunk of poop fell and settled on Slab's shoulder. He didn't seem to notice. "And it is I, Slab Rankle, that will have to cleanse you of its seductive hand!" He opened the back doors of the van and threw them inside until they bounced off the back wall.

"Eh," Zim pushed himself off the floor, shaking his head. "That's okay. Actually, I think I'm good now. Oh, yes indeed-y! Zim is tempted no more! He will do nothing but disgusting squeaky good from this day forth- Mmm_hm_!" He grinned innocently. "Can I go home now?"

"Hmm. No. Remember this, boys!" Slab grabbed the door handles. "We have rules for a reason! Without them, ohh, the idea…Dirty, terrible chaos…CHAOS!"

The doors slammed shut. They fell into darkness.

"Hey, human."

The engine started. "What is it, Zim?"

"…You smell bad."

Dib heaved a sigh, long and deep and full of much worldly resignation. "So do you, Zim. So do you."


	2. Orange Suits

_NOTE: Aiight. I went and wrote some more. Much thanks to those of you that reviewed (they made me feel squeaky inside). I appreciate the constructive criticism. I'm not much of a writer, you see. I'll try to take your advice, but chances are I'll forget and be all, "HURR I'mma writin' a fanfiction!" again soon enough._

_Also, consider this an official warning! I have a tendency to screw things up as I go, so if this starts to suck at any point, you're free to leave. Forget all you've seen here. Go frolic in a meadow or something._

_Now, prepare yourself, 'cause this story is about to take off in a really stupid direction. __FETCH THE DERP HELMETS. _

O R A N G E . S U I T S

"Six _months_?" Dib yelped. His arms pinwheeled in their new bright orange jumpsuit. Suddenly it felt like the already close walls in the tiny gray room were moving in. "I can't go to juvie! Who'll investigate the family of Slug People that moved in down my street? Who'll protect my sister if they try to slime all over her organs? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? WHO?"

Zim slapped his hand over Dib's face, and shoved him off of the table. "For once, Zim agrees with the putrid Dib-larva. I'm far too preoccupied to attend this 'center of youthful de-ten-tion.' Zim has normal pig-wormy things to do back in his base-uh, _house_. Perhaps some other time- this was fun- don't call me, I'll call you; now how do I get out of this room?"

Slab slammed his fist down on the metal table, denting it irreparably. "_There _IS_ no way out_!" Zim and Dib jerked back, horrified by the spittle torpedoing across the room. "This is the questioning room from which there is no escape! Once inside, no escape is possible! Escape cannot be had!" Zim looked thoughtful.

"So, what you're saying is… Zim _can't_ get away."

Dib followed this up with the rise of a morbidly curious eyebrow. "But…there's a door right over there. It's only about two feet to my left. Look, I can touch it from here."

Dib touched the door.

"What's that? Oh. I guess there is,"

Slab scratched his chin. He stared at Dib and Zim. Dib and Zim stared back.

"But you can't leave! I'm afraid you boys have no choice in the matter. The effort we've had to exert just to sweep all the dookie off of the buildings is _staggering_. The magnitude of your misdeed is too great to let you off with a meager slap on the wrist!"

"But _I_ didn't do anything! It was _Zim_ who-"

"NO ONE CAN _TOUCH_ ZIM'S WRISTS!"

"_Stop_ _talking_!" Slab exploded. Figuratively. Not literally. That would've been terrific, but it didn't happen.

After that, Zim and Dib went very quiet. They sneered, glared bullets, teeth grinding as static bounced between their eyes. The hatred was palpable.

"Slab is going to make sure you two boys learn your lesson! Poop is no laughing matter! It's very serious!" He got all up in their faces. "_Say it_!"

"Say wh-"

"SAY IT!"

"Poop is no laughing matter."

"GOOD. Now. From the way you both spoke in perfect unison, I assume you are deeply connected on an intimate level-" The boys shared a mortified look "-which is why I'm going to let you remain cuffed together during the bus ride to the detention center. You will be held there for six months until your scheduled trial date, at which point further decisions will be made to determine your sentence! Do. You. Have. Any last _w-ORDS_?"

Dib's response was calm- "Yes. Just this:"

And then not calm. He screeched like a banshee on crystal meth. He screeched like _GIR_ on crystal meth. He babbled. His face spasmed and spewed frothy spit around while his body jerked violently in its chair. Was it a seizure? Was the boy possessed? Should someone DO something?-!

Then it stopped. "That's all," he said.

Oh, alright then.

Zim stood up on his chair. "I refuse to remained tethered to this disgusting ball of Dib-filth-DIB! Release me!"

"I'm not g-"

"RELEASE ME!"

"I-"

"RELEASE ME!"

"_NOO_!"

Zim seemed to stop…

"Release me."

Slab snagged them both by the chain and hefted them over his shoulder. He walked outside where a military-esque bus was waiting in the parking lot. It had huge monster truck sized wheels and stainless steel, needlessly thick bars on all the windows. Dib recoiled. "Wait! Wait! I want to talk to my dad! He can get me out of this!"

"We already called him. He says he hopes his poor, criminally insane son is persuaded by the hardships of jail to finally start practicing Real Science." Slab tossed Zim and Dib into the bus like a pitcher throwing a fastball. A flaming fastball. In hell. "I will visit you shortly to make sure you're both experiencing the fullest extent of the misery that our government has to offer! _DIII_SMISSED!" The driver cracked the doors shut in his face.

The bus was quiet and gray like a prison cell, which made perfect sense. It was the kind of gray that one pictures when thinking of dead puppies and the end of the world, or perhaps days at grandma's house. A man in a similarly gray suit held a gun in one of the front seats. Despite the reflective glasses covering his eyes, it was impossible not to feel him watching. Just…watching. He tapped his weapon. Cautiously, they picked themselves off the aisle, and chose a seat. Zim slid in toward the window. When Dib tried to sit next to him, Zim kicked him off with both feet. Dib thumped hard to the floor and hacked up some blood from the impact which he was pretty sure punctured a lung. He sat there, grimacing, for the rest of the ride.

And it was a bumpy one- unpleasant, hot, and depressing. Dib had almost started falling asleep. Drool spotted his jumpsuit. Zim stared out the window and thought about things (piñatas) that made him happy. It was almost an hour before the city started thinning out and trees took place of buildings.

"Five minutes," The bus driver called. The guard tilted his head amusedly.

"Hm, oh-_hoh-hoh_. I hope you delinquents are looking forward to meeting your roommates. I hear Big Betsy is free."

"Betsy?" Dib cocked an eyebrow, blinking himself conscious. "I thought boys and girls were separated."

The smile he got wasn't very reassuring. "They are."

Okay, ritual suicide couldn't be that bad. Dib could do it, he thought. Oh, no, wait. No, he couldn't. No, first he'd have to kill Zim. _Then_ he could die.

Let's see now. He could disembowel the alien using an old pen. He was pretty sure he could find one of those in juvie. Maybe a sharpened toothbrush. Do aliens even have bowels? Huh. Well, he could give Zim a thousand and one paper cuts and fill them all with salty lemon juice. Wait, with his luck, lemon juice could make the moron feel _good_. Who knew how aliens reacted to that sort of stuff. "Hey, Zim. What would you do if I said the word…lemons."

Zim gave him a weird look.

"Last stop."

"Alright, you two! Up!"

Zim's eyes narrowed. He took one look out the window, squinted, and then backpedaled like hell. "Oh, my _Irken_ Conventia! What is this? _What is this_? That's no normal human building! Dib-smelly, answer Zim!"

"That's juvenile hall, _Zim_! Where do you think we've been going this whole time? Summer camp?"

_Oh_ no. Oh no, no; this was _bad_. It looked more like one of the Irken internment camps he'd seen when he was a smeet than some disgusting human containment structure like he'd expected. That building was sinister. It was huge. The cement wall along the edge was lined entirely with electric barbed wire, as though it'd been growing on them like ivy. Armed guards stood at the top and mutant rabid gorillas were tethered up at the base, dripping glowing purple spit. A mine field stretched out the rest of the way, littered with rotting, broken up animal bits. Then, nothing but open woods- who knows how many miles thick.

"I can't escape from that place; it'd take too long!" Zim whispered to himself, edgy. "But the mission. The _mission_. I must not fail my Tallests! Must revert to plan….plan… plan Awesome Zim is Awesome."

"Plan? What are you going on about now, Zim? Something evil? You'll never get away with it!"

"I said, UP!" The guard struck Dib and Zim in the back of their heads one after the other. They grabbed their skulls and grumbled out of their seats. "Whadda yah thinkin'- that I'm stupid? Doh. Duuh. 'Cause I'm not! I can tell when someone's stalling fer time!"

Dib headed down the aisle first, his stomach dropping and twisting like some sort of sick carnival ride. He didn't want to go to jail. He didn't want to room with Big Betsy. And he _certainly_ didn't want to room with _Zim_. He started to hyperventilate, his wrist up rigidly behind him where the handcuffs attached him to his mortal enemy. Zim, on the other end of the chain, was twitching like he had epilepsy.

They stepped off the bus. The guard was standing at their backs with the gun held between them. Zim's whole body flinched, and he turned around. "Uh, hey!" He stammered, "What's _that_, UGH, hideous thing behind you!"

"What? What?" The guard turned to follow Zim's finger.

Dib narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing, space boy?"

Zim ignored him. "Huh? Oh, it must have been nothing. Thought I saw one of those celebrities you humans love. Say, can I borrow your gun?"

"Yeah, sure, I don't see why- HEY, wait a minute! No! I'm not supposed to let the inmates hold it!"

"I see. That's too bad," Zim looked disappointed.

Until he whipped the gun out from behind his back like a badass in a mafia movie.

"_Because I already took it_!"

"_Oh_, my God." Dib staggered back. He'd seen Zim snatch the gun. He'd known one hundred percent what was going to happen next, and yet he was _still_ shocked that Zim could be so stupid.

The guard looked down at his hands and gasped. The boy was right! It was gone! "Uu-_Oh_ no! _Oh_ _cheesy fried no_!" He stared frightfully down at Zim, who poked the barrel into the man's gut. Once. Twice. Jab, jab. The guard burst into screams that could put a girl scout to shame, that could bleed eardrums. His whole body trembled. "Please! I have a dog at home! And a TV! Don't make me leave the TV!"

"_Silence_!"

An alarm started blaring in the background as the detention center was alerted by the screams. Zim grunted angrily. He pressed the gun to the man harder. Zim grabbed the end, spun it around, and knocked him out with the thick end of the handle. Unconscious, the guard landed with his face buried in the dirt and his butt up in the air like a female panda presenting her goods.

"Zim, this is stupid! This is _stupid_ stupid! You've got to stop and give yourself in before you get me into even bigger trouble than you already have! Think of my innocence, Zim! MY INNOCENCE! _I don't want it lost to some guy named Betsy_!"

"Shut your voice box, noise-boy! Zim is busting out of here! Now be a good sacrifice and distract the other guard drones! Bye-bye!"

Zim shoved Dib hard, slamming him into the dirt beside the guard. Then he started to run. By the wrist, Dib was dragged over rocks and mud at Zim's heels. He choked on earth. He tried to spit, but was failing miserably. A worm lodged itself in his ear. "'IM! 'IMN! Shtopppt-!" With a lot of effort, and one kick to the face later, Dib managed to tumble to his feet, and run (stumble) at the aliens heels. He spewed dirt and spit like nobody's business. "You idiot! Did you forget you and I were _tied_ _together_?-!"

Zim looked back and balked. "Yes! No! I mean, Zim _never_ forgets! He merely… forgot!"

…Wut?

"_What_!-?"

"Faster, _DIB_! I will not have you ruin my escape because of your pathetic _human_ speed!"

_Well_! Dib did run faster. If only to prove that humans weren't as slow as Zim thought they were (and because of Big Betsy), but he was still furious! Oh, how furious was he. "This is only going to make everything worse!"

They heard a faint voice yell at their backs._ "Get 'em, Drud! Kloopy, Hed, Dirp! Tear those hoodlums to shreds!" _

Dib yelped and sped up until Zim was being dragged -literally airborne- behind him. "No! Not the gorillas! Not the GORILLAAAAAS!"

Panic. At this point, Zim and Dib had reached the woods and were zigzagging through the trees as fast as any two living being could, trying to disappear into the gloom. Unfortunately, it was at this same time that the security guards released their attack gorillas. And they were fast. Fast gorillas. Zim made a worried sound and activated his PAK legs.

Dib was hefted up off his feet, dangling a foot off the ground with bulging eyes. He curled his body up so he wouldn't be punctured by a metal limb. Still, even through the terror and rage, Dib had to admit, they were making good time. The angry gorilla sounds were getting further away, but the fact that they were still in hearing range at all meant they were too close for comfort.

"_AH_-!" Zim gasped. His body lurched forward over water, but he directed his legs to shore, which quickly yanked him back. Dib went flying, smacking full-body into a tree.

They'd hit a river.

"Ugh," Dib groaned. His everything hurt. "Now what are you gonna do, you lizard? Let's just go back and say you got scared and ran off or something. They'd believe that! We'd just tell them you're a horrified squealy girl, lost what little wits you had, and started running. Oh, but how does that explain taking the gun?" As Dib tried to work out the formula to himself, Zim's PAK legs started moving again. He ran along the bank, tense and hurried. His head jolted from left to right, trying to find something, _something_, when he finally spotted- Dib's' eyes snapped open. "Oh, no, Zim. Just no! We'd never get away in that! Don't even-! Don't you try it- _Don't_! You're doing it anyway."

"Quiet, human! Zim is being _brilliant_!"

Zim retracted the legs. Dib landed gracelessly in the dirt. "Zim is being a brainless suicidal alien menace and I'm strapped to his wrist!"

"This is a magical time for you, yes."

Zim said this, but he was cringing like nothing else. Water. Filthy, disgusting, _painful, horrible Earth water_! He wasn't feeling very enthusiastic about leaving himself stranded in the middle of it. His eyes scanned the woods and his hidden antennae twitched, trying to pinpoint the location of the monkey-beasts. They were getting closer. Too quickly for his comfort. There were trees and bushes and weeds and thickets blocking everything- no way he could keep running on his PAK legs. He wouldn't make it.

But Irk if he was about to let himself get captured! This was the _only_ choice.

Zim flipped over a filthy old little rowboat. It was a dinghy, covered from top to bottom in peeling white paint and tiny spots of mold. The inside was less soiled than the outside, but crawling with nasty insects. He and Dib shared expressions of disgust as Zim flipped it one more time and beat twice on the bottom. Most of the bugs fell out. There wasn't time to squish the others. He pushed the boat into the water.

With one PAK leg, he nabbed the edge of the boat before it could get away and silently mourned the lost sanitation of his beautiful gloves, as he bent over to dig the oars out of the dirt. He grimaced at the sight of the first one. It was rotted and worthless, crumbling in his hands. The other was in better shape. He threw it in the boat and hopped in behind. Dib essentially fell in beside him.

"Maybe when we're caught, I can tell them you kidnapped me," Dib said to himself more than to Zim. "And they'll do tests on you to figure out why you're so evil. Then they'll find out you're an alien."

"Nonsense, Dib-larva! Even a freshly activated Earth newborn would know Zim would never willingly kidnap _you_ when he could so easily take someone more worthy," said Zim.

Dib pulled a face. Zim didn't notice as he kicked them away from shore. The current picked them up from there. They started to drift.

Back on land, the gorillas burst through the trees. One couldn't break the momentum and splashed into the water. The rest managed to stop, hanging off of branches and sneering something ugly at Zim and Dib as their prey floated away, out of their reach. Finally. Safe.

Zim blew a raspberry. "HAH! Take _that_, filthy Earth beasts! Just try to get Zim _now_! Hahahahahaha!"

Oh, that was a bad decision.

The gorillas jumped into the water.

Zim deadpanned. "Uh. Hm."

Dib started screaming hysterically, grabbing the oar and plunging it into the water again and again at warp speed.

"_Row_, Dib-thing, _ROW_! _Row for our LIIIIVES_!"

So he did.


	3. Sickening

_NOTE: I'm embarrassed to have created this. My apologies. Enjoy? _

S I C K E N I N G

"So, who knew gorillas couldn't swim?"

"Mm. Surprising."

"Really."

Dib and Zim watched the ripples break through the current from where the gorillas sank, safely out of harm's way. The spot was steadily growing invisible as the river dragged them off, too far to see it anymore. They sat back. The sun was beating down hard on their skin, and from the trees there came a clicking, chirping sound of cicada bugs carrying over the water. It was irritating. It was _very_ irritating.

Zim stared at his boots, scuffed with mud and general messiness. It made him angry. He tapped his foot and tried to ignore the fact that he was currently surrounded by water, which wasn't working. Dib was staring at him in a stupid way, with stupid eyes and a stupid head. Well, that was enough of that, Zim decided. "Back to land now, Dib-ugly. Get your future slave master out of this awful floaty tub." He lounged back and waved his hand like he was trying to summon a plate of grapes.

"Like heck I will, ZIM," Dib spat. "You're crazy. I wouldn't even if I could."

"You speak in riddles, stinky! Explain to Zim!"

"It _means_, you jerk, that the forests on either side of us are covered in marsh! Of course _you_ didn't notice. One step on there and you'd sink into water and slime right up to your disgusting alien head… On second thought, I think I'll take you after all!"

Zim looked from one side of the river to the other, wide eyes blinking in shock, and growled. The earth worm was right. Nothing but disgusting, smelly mud. Their only option was to turn back, to meet to the drowning gorillas and the police. Like that would happen. Zim growled under his breath, digging fingers into his temples. His head was beginning to hurt. He wanted to be back at his base, or better yet, back on Irk, being weighted on by service drones like the superior being that he surely was. But no. He was stuck in a boat with the human. "I hate you."

"Right back at you. Scab."

"Gutter vermin."

"Dookie head."

"Smell-dook."

"Ugly…Space…poop-!" Dib made a furious sound- a roar high in his throat. "I can't believe you got me into this mess, you lizard!"

"Me? ZIM? Got? You should be _thanking_ Zim for saving you from that horrible detection center, _pig-smelly_," Zim fumed.

"It's '_detention'_ center! And you weren't saving me! You were going to leave me as a sacrifice!"

Okay, that was true. "Oh, again with that? When are you going to let that go?"

"This is the first time I brought it up!"

"You're lying!"

"AAAUGH!" Dib grabbed two large chunks of hair and tore them from their roots. Blood and raw red skin speckled the bald spots. Luckily, due to an experiment by Professor Membrane gone horribly right back when his son was a mere test-tube, all of Dib's follicles were mildly radioactive, and his hair grew back instantaneously. Zim did not question this. "The only reason I'm here at all is because I'm tied to your stupid alien wrist! You're a jerk and a psychopath and I can't wait to cut you open with a dull pair of nail clippers! Maybe I'll keep your _squeedilyspooch_ in a jar!"

Zim gasped as though that actually hurt.

Nobody threatened Zim with jars. He _hated_ jars.

His eyes narrowed, PAK legs shooting into the air over his head. They shifted and changed, becoming a laser, looking deadly and far too massive to have come out of such a small backpack. In the center developed a small bead of light, growing and growing until it became roughly the size of a bowling ball, pointed directly at Dib's face and hissing in a nearly inaudible high-pitched scream.

Dib flinched, his back slamming into the floor of the boat and his head thumping the back; he screamed and clung to the wood. His breathing went haywire. Where was he supposed to run? There was nowhere to go! He kicked his legs and bit his tongue. This wasn't how he wanted to go. He wanted to die with his head buried in a paranormal magazine, sitting on the toilet. _That_ was a noble death! _This_…this was Zim aiming right at his forehead and preparing to shoot a hole through his brain. He squeezed his eyes shut.

ZW-AM!

His heart stopped. Well, that was it. He was dead. He was only sorry he'd never gotten the chance to ride a moose. Aw, man! He _really_ wanted to ride a moose.

Miserably, he cracked his eyes open and he stayed that way to brood for a while. Soon enough an angel would be coming along to show him to his- _OH, SWEET FRANKENCHOKY_! He scrambled back, babbling in dread. Zim? Zim was there? This wasn't heaven! _This wasn't heaven at all!_

That was correct. Zim's satisfied humming sounded obnoxious as the handcuffs clattered to the bottom of the boat, smoking , charred, and useless as anything more than scrap metal. He rubbed his wrist, reveling in the sensation of freedom. He was disinclined to figure out what the dirt-larva was screaming about. Instead, he celebrated his own idiocy- _magnificence_, sorry, sorry. "_Victory_! No pathetic human manacles can restrain _me_- ZIM!" He made a pleased sound and wiggled a dance in triumph. He moved like flan.

Dib was breathless. "I'm alive, then," he exhaled, felt his face, his hair, his glasses. "Oh. That's...good. Yeah. Mildly disappointing, actually, seeing as I'm still stuck in a boat roughly the size of my front door. With an alien. An alien bent on destroying all mankind. And I'm dressed like a traffic cone. But, yeah, mostly good."

Zim, who was still basking in his all-encompassing splendor, but now with the added misfortune of remembering the human was there, stopped dancing immediately. His face twisted. "Quiet your sniveling and thank Zim for his deed."

"Thank you? _Thank_ you? Thank _you_? You? _Zim_? Not a chance! It's your fault were stuck here in the first place. I hate you, you know," Dib said. "I mean, _honestly_! What were you even planning to do when you got away anyway, huh? HUH? We're probably being tracked right now! Did you consider _that?"_

"Er, eh. _Of course_ I did." Zim totally hadn't considered that. "And I didn't care! So shut your filthy Dib mouth."

"That's so _stupid_!"

"Your _appendix_ is stupid!"

"Hey! It is not!" Dib clutched his appendix, insulted. "And what does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything Zim says always has _everything_ to do with everything! Argh!" Zim groaned, as if to say, 'and that's that!' and flopped facetiously onto the floor. Dib glared at him for a long time, opening and closing his mouth, trying to think of something witty and cool to say to that, and failing horribly. Still fuming, he erupted in one final, end-of-conversation yell. If nothing else, he was going to get the last sound in. But Zim snorted two seconds later, and all Dib could do was grimace.

He fell onto his back, still pissed. It was too hot. A mosquito landed on his arm with a nasally buzz and started in for a snack. Dib glared at it. With one quick movement, he nailed it and pulled his hand away with droplets of his own blood smeared between his fingers and all over his arm. It made him sick. Oh, yeah. This was no time (or place) to pick a fight with an alien.

A lot of time passed like that. At least thirty minutes. Dib sighed, peeling chips of paint up off the inner wall of the dinghy with his fingernail. He amassed a small collection, which he stacked in a pile. The one he was working on at that moment was bigger than the others so far, and he could see the water-stained brown wood being revealed underneath. Bored. Bored, bored, bored. He sighed every three minutes or so. He knew he was probably getting annoying. He saw Zim scowl more than once. That gave him great satisfaction. So Dib did it again. He couldn't help it. Sitting there, baking in the summer heat with no shade and nothing to do but think and watch trees pass…

Ugh.

He listened to Zim breathe. It was becoming heavy, panting types of breath. It was like sitting next to a thirsty dog. Dib picked his head up and studied the alien, eyes narrowing critically. Zim was starting to look pretty gross, actually. His skin was turning an ugly, slimy green-yellow, and that weird serpentine tongue had lolled out the side of his mouth. His eyes were closed, but didn't look relaxed. He looked like a rotting corpse. Dib gagged for the sake of gagging. "Why do you look so disgusting, ZIM? You know, more so than usual."

Zim groaned weakly. He waved Dib away and flipped onto his other side.

"No, seriously. You smell like burning rubber bands."

Zim's hissed and curled his legs to his chest.

"Are you melting? Is the heat getting to poor little Zimmy?"

"Can it, human."

"How close is Irk's sun to your planet, huh?" Dib asked, prying. "Zim? Hey." But he wasn't getting answers. Zim merely slid his claws over his eyes and continued to breathe. Dib sighed, clunking his head back down and waiting for…something. Something to happen. But it wasn't going to.

He…couldn't take it. The constant quiet. The barely-there lull of the boat swaying from side to side. It was... was… was- "_Why_ are there so many _trees_?"

"Oh, for the _love_ of-!" Zim huffed loudly. Giving up on the attempt to wallow in self-pity, he flipped one more time onto his other side. _Obviously_, the human couldn't _handle_ a little quiet time. "Dib-thing, just silence your planet-sized head and row us somewhere if you're so _bored_. I'm sure there's a solid patch of dirt somewhere where Zim can leave you now."

"You can't tell me what to do!" Dib made a face. "I'm going to row, but it's _not_ because you told me to! It's because I'm tired of watching your nasty green skin drip slime so close to me." Zim glowered furiously, turning around to pull up one sleeve, discreetly checking out his own skin. Actually, it _was_ looking rather strange. That was weird. Must have been the heat. Irk never got as hot as the stupid Earthen filth-planet did.

Dib picked up their only oar, and started to paddle. Into the water. Out of the water. Into the water. Out of the water. Slow. In–_pull_- out.

It was difficult work dragging that chunky hunk of wood through water that felt thick as syrup. Dib didn't have much upper body strength to begin with. This made him mad. Most things made him mad nowadays. He looked up at Zim and sneered something fierce.

Zim wasn't looking back, though. He was huddling in the front of the boat. The longer he sat, the tighter he started hugging his body. He'd slipped deep into thought. Dib couldn't hear what he was thinking, but it must have been something wicked.

'_Surrounded by water-water-water-water-water-water-water-water-water.'_

Yes, the pinnacle of evil, was Zim. Dib picked the oar out of the water and plunged it back in. His anger was building. The longer they sat in silence, the more time he had to fume, to think, to _realize_ his nemesis had finally done it. Zim had ruined Dib's life. There would be no bouncing back from this one. This was it. Even if they somehow managed to escape, they'd be picked up the second either of them tried to go home.

They were drifting to the left. Dib lifted the oar out of the water and swung it in front of him to straighten them again. Water flung off the tip and splattered onto Zim before falling back into the water on Dib's other side. Zim screeched and collapsed into a fit, skin sizzling. "You filthy humaaan! Watch what you're doing!"

"Oh, sorry," Dib muttered distractedly. The hate inside of him was swirling into panic. He was going to live out the rest of his life in a prison cell! But…but he _couldn't_! That couldn't happen! He had things to do! The world was ignorant; _someone_ needed to protect it from paranormal threats! He yanked the oar out again and swung it fast back to his right side, flicking that much more water onto Zim.

Zim had only just collected himself, panting and uncomfortable from the last onslaught when he was hit again. His back slammed into the floor of the boat and he screamed, a part of his eye crusting over with a burn. "You horrible, _insufferable_ _Dib-stink_!"

That snapped Dib out of his stupor. "Wha-?" He blinked, an eyebrow raised at Zim. He glanced at the oar, the water, Zim's skin. And started to smirk. "Oh, _my_ bad, Zim. Did I get you wet? What a terrible mistake. I _promise_ not to do it again."

Zim whimpered. He whimpered _like an invader, _of course; not like a crying infant -no, certainly not- but he still whimpered. Then, with much mustered willpower, he growled. Deep, deep in his throat.

Dib's lips curled up. He swung the oar again. Zim screamed.

"Woopsie! I did it again. Oh, don't gimme that look. I'm not doing it on _purpose_ or anything!"

Dib was doing it on purpose.

"I won't do it again; I swear… _Or will I_?" Dib did it again. More and more water. "Take _that_, space boy!"

"You... You greasy _pig sno-aaaAAAht_!" Zim wanted to get up and run. He wanted to run and flail and jump and fall until the pain stopped, but he couldn't move. Not while he was stuck in that stupid human water tub! _Why_ hadn't he disposed of the Dib-creature when he'd had the chance? He bolted up and lunged. "RAAAAH!"

Dib screamed, falling back and sticking the oar up like it would protect him. The boat rocked. Zim's claws dug into the hilt of the oar, ripping it from human fingers and using it to ram Dib in the cheek. "Oof-!" Dib's head hit the side of the boat hard enough to jolt his vision.

He grunted and kicked Zim's feet out from under him. The oar tumbled. "Get out of Zim's tub, Dib-smell!" Zim pushed himself back up. "Get out! Out! OUT!"

Claws ripped at Dib's skin, digging and tearing gashes in his chest and face and arms. Dib bit and punched and kicked back. "Not a chance, ZIM! YOU get out!"

"NEVER!"

"Aah!" They both grunted simultaneously as the dinghy gave a sudden lurch. Zim winced as a few more drops of water hit his arm.

"Quit rocking the boat, beasty!"

"That was all you, space rot!"

Another lurch. This time more abrupt and unstable. Zim and Dib froze. Zim's claws were still yanking back Dib's lips and cutting into his face. Dib's hands were clamped on Zim's head, holding him back from an attack that was no longer coming. Zim's wig fell off his head.

They looked, slowly, slowly, together, off into the distance beyond the walls of their tiny wooden row boat. And they _baulked_.

"…Hold me."

e l s e w h e r e

"WHAAAAAT?" Slab heaved air, veins bulging.

"Th-they've escaped. Just vanished! And the gorillas, too… You think they joined forces?"

The guard flinched and whimpered away as Slab got all up in his grill, glaring with his one painfully visible eye and gnashing his teeth into sand. Lips quivering in a sneer that could suck the joy out of a happiness probe, Slab dismissed the man and growled around the area, snuffing at the air like a dog.

The failed guards cowered behind him, huddled in a shuddering mass. Slab followed his nose to the place where the bus still stood with the door open. The unconscious escort still had his face shoved deep in the dirt, his butt in the air. Slab took a hearty whiff of that. His nostrils jumped and twitched over the fallen gun for a moment, his eye widening.

He shifted suddenly, turning to slap his honker into the dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust. The guards leaned forward curiously.

Slab gasped. He shot upright and the guards jumped away.

In the dirt at Slab's feet was a perfect, undisturbed imprint of Dib's twisted, screaming face.

He started to laugh, slow at first, scaring the dickens out of the crowd behind him. "And so the game begins, trespasser and friend. The game begins… _again_." He grinned. A sinister thing. "Fetch me a boat, boys! Slab Rankle is a-goin' _hunting_!"

b a c k o n t h e r i v e r

Zim and Dib gripped each other close.

They shrieked like girls. No, I take that back. That would be insulting to girls everywhere. These were shrieks all their own.

The boat was being tossed around like a ping pong ball in a tumbler, striking rocks and jumping over rapids. The roar of water was so loud, it blended decibel for decibel with their screams. Zim was being pelted on all sides by sprays and splashes. His body burned. His whole body. The pain was excruciating, and he knew the dinghy- _the puny, pathetic Earth transport tub (oh, how he would destroy every last one of these things)_- was barely hanging together. He could hear it scraping against the rocks, wood grinding away.

Meanwhile, Dib was blind as a bat. His glasses were fogged with white sprays of mist. Every time Zim gasped or screamed a little louder, his heart skipped a beat. He could only assume it was because something big was coming up that he couldn't see. What if they were heading for a boulder? Oh, God. He was a really bad swimmer! Like really, really bad! DOGS could out-swim Dib! Where was his ducky tube when he really needed it?

Their throats were being torn to shreds, ripped raw, red and abused.

Then, just like that, everything seemed to slow, then to level out. Dib gasped for air like it was going out of style. He could hear the rapids sliding away from them, and aside from a few weak bumps and grinds, it seemed the worst was over. They could hear themselves breathing.

But then there was another sound. Something like a choking fish.

"Zim? What's-"

"Oooh, no!" Zim groaned. "Oh, no, no, no! Why must this BE?"

"What? WHAT? ZIM! What's going on?"

"Abandon ship, Dib-for-brains!"

Zim's panicked eyes darted around for a low hanging branch- any branch, for Irk's sake. They were not directly next to, but near the river bank, far enough that he couldn't quite reach it unless _it_ reached out to _him_. Body shaking violently, PAK limbs exploded from his back and scrambled to gain purchase on the closest tree. It was too far- they scraped right off, and Zim cursed. Missed.

Dib was wiping furiously at this glasses on the only dry part of his shirt, where he'd been attached to Zim, and when he stuck them back on, his eyes nearly burst out of his sockets.

Oh.

Zim poised himself for the next tree, and when it came up, struck. He impaled the legs deep into the nearest branch; it was high above his head, sticking out over the water. His body lifted clear out of the boat. OH, thank Spork that worked. He grinned like a jerk as Dib started floating away. "Later, DIB. Have a nice fall!"

"Whuah-?" Dib spun around. He'd been staring in a horrified stupor at the impending rush of water dropping off up ahead like it had reached the very edge of the Earth itself. At his feet, water was gurgling through tiny gashes in the wood. All in all, things weren't looking very good. And now the alien thought he was getting away? Without him? Dib snapped. "Oh, no you _don't_!"

He lunged and jumped with a battle cry, right off the edge of the sinking plank of wood, and latched both arms around Zim's twiggy legs. Zim shrieked. With a gut-wrenching _'Shunk!,' _one of the mechanical legs dislodged from the branch. It flailed and scrambled to regain hold. _"DIB, _you awful little-! Let go of Zim's superior legs and fall to your death like a good boy."

"No."

"Come on now. Listen to your future slave master."

"No!"

"Aw, just do it. For Zim?"

"NO!"

"ARRGH! URGH-UH! RR!" Zim grunted and kicked and swung his leg. "Get! Off! AAH!" Another metal leg dislodged with a _pop_. Zim and Dib dangled that much closer to the rushing water –Dib had to curl his legs up to his chest- and Zim shrieked. He looked off toward the waterfall and tried to spot the dinghy, hoping for some weird sense of security that it was still there, but it was long gone.

"No way, Zim! If you want to get yourself out of this, you have to take me with you!" said Dib, struggling to keep his feet out of the water. "Face it, space scum! I don't like you and you don't like me, but if we don't… _work together_ on this, we're just gonna keep dragging each other down until both of us are caught again! Or _worse_!"

"Not if I destroy you first-"

"ZIM!"

"F-FFFF-!" Zim spewed. "F-_FINE_! Stinky, disgusting, _stinky_-!"

Dib released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

"Good. Now pull us up."

"Don't tell Zim what to-"

"Just do it!"

Zim grunted and shook with the attempt to haul himself and another body over the branch on just two precariously secured metal limbs. Dib watched with fascination as the water drew farther away, and at the way Zim face turned dark with effort to make it happen. An eyebrow jumped up in curiosity. He wanted to ask why Zim was having such a hard time even though he wasn't using any muscles. He settled for the assumption that Zim was just really stupidly weak.

Zim mumbled something about giant heads being too heavy for their own good.

With a sudden jerk, Zim flung his legs, and by default, Dib, up over the branch. Mid movement, though, the PAK limbs lost their holding. Zim hadn't gotten over. Two successive _pops_ told Dib that Zim was going down. The alien screamed, claws scrambling hopelessly and missing the bark.

Without much thought about why, Dib reached out and grabbed Zim's wrist. He huffed and grumbled, blood rushing to his face as he yanked Zim's alien butt up and onto the branch. Zim had his eyes closed. Even out of harm's way, he continued to scream.

"Zim!" Dib tried to snap him out of it. "Hey, lizard!"

"_Aaaaah_!"

"Yo! Yoo-hoo! Alien scum!"

"AAAUUGHH!"

"Hey! You're not falling anymore! I caught you!"

"Aaaah!" Zim gasped. "_AAHHH_!"

Dib deadpanned

"AaaAAugh!"

"…Splash. You hit the water."

"AHHH! BURNING!" Zim spasmed. His eyes cracked open. Then they opened fully. "Oh."

"Yeah."

An awkward silence followed as Zim retracted the limp mechanical legs back into his utility pack. He coughed uncomfortably into his fist. He tried to salvage his dignity by sitting up straight, dusting off his orange jumpsuit, but that made him wince as the water in the fabric brushed his skin. "Uh. Well, congratulations, human, on finally doing something useful with your life and saving your future slave master. Good for you."

"You're _welcome_." Dib spat.

"Not that I needed your help," Zim hastened to add.

"Keep telling yourself that."

"Zim had the situation completely under control."

"Sure you did."

Zim frowned and sulked. His pride hurt.

For a long time, human and alien sat quietly. They stared at the river, back toward the rapids they'd survived, off toward the waterfall they wouldn't have. It still felt like a shock to their systems. Dib was surprised they'd made it; Zim, not so much (he always made it). He lost interest quickly, so he turned away from the water and flicked an ant off of his arm.

The sun was still bright overhead, and after some time of sitting still, Dib noticed finally that his face and hands hurt like hell in a hand basket. He whimpered. Sunburn sucked. He noticed that Zim looked like a sack of crap, too. He wondered if aliens could get sunburn. Usually bright green skin still looked pretty yellowish and gross.

Dib hugged his knees to his chest. The branch they were on wasn't particularly thick, and he didn't have the comfort of the actual tree to lean back on because Zim had commandeered that side. They weren't up too high, maybe eight feet over the river. Eight feet tops.

Zim was staring at it moving down below and looking highly uncomfortable. The water was still too close. He activated the legs again and hooked them around a branch above their heads, hauling himself up. He swung from that one, to a higher one, and from that higher one, to another. Dib jumped up and yelled, "Where're you going? Don't just leave me on this branch!" Without any thought, Dib climbed after him.

Next thing he knew, they were maybe fifty feet off the ground, and Dib was dragging himself onto a huge branch with Zim, arms shaking. His heart jumped straight into his throat. He'd just looked down. Okay, that was a long drop. The roar of the rapids was more like a whisper, and the world was spinning.

Hugging the branch around the middle, Dib squeezed his eyes shut and decided to think about different things. Yes. For instance, he was hungry. Really, really hungry. He could do with some pizza right about then. Or a donut. Some bacon? Nachos. Cereal. A big, juicy hamburger. Oh, his mouth was watering. He had to stop thinking about food. Now wasn't the time. He should focus on other things, like the fact that he needed to…Um.

Hm. Awkward. Hmm.

"Zim? Could you maybe…turn around for a minute?" he asked. At least he was calmed down.

"Silence, human."

"No, seriously. I have to go."

"Go? By all means!" Zim waved him away like a fly, folding his hands over his stomach as he leaned back against the tree, eyes closed. "Leave! All the better for Zim."

"No, I mean I have to _go_," Dib persisted. "You know. Play fireman. Water the farm. Bleed the lizard."

Zim's eyes snapped open. "Stay away from Zim's life-candies-!"

"Not you, _lizard_! I have to pee!"

"Oh." Zim relaxed. Then he tensed again. "EWW! What is it with you humans and your waste!"

"Just-!" Dib huffed, "Just turn around!"

Zim growled and did as instructed. He didn't want to watch this anyway. Filthy. He could hear Dib unzip his suit and he shuddered in disgust. Then there was a sound like someone draining a water bottle, right over the edge of the branch, and Zim _smelled_ it- smelled ammonia and salt. And something distinctly _human_. That's when the gagging started. He slapped both hands over his antennae, and noticed with little attention that his wig was gone.

"So… what are we gonna do now?"

"Don't talk to me while you're _leaking fluids_!"

"'Cause we can't stay here all night. I'll bet we're being tracked as we speak. "

"Give Zim one reason why he shouldn't shove you off this branch right now!"

"Maybe we should rest for a while first. Then start moving. If we stay in the treetops and avoid the marsh, we can follow the river and I'm sure it'll lead us to a town." Dib finished up what he was doing, zipped up, and sat down. "We're gonna have to change these clothes so we don't stand out so much. And get some food. I figure we'll take this moment by moment, you know? Focus on one thing at a time. It'll be best if we- Hey. Why haven't you called your robot things?"

Zim blinked. Why _hadn't_ he...? Wait. Ah. He sent them off to prisoner 777 for upgrades; the kind with lasers and sharp pointy things, and a donut dispenser for minimoose. Stupid 777 and his bad timing. Zim grumbled an indistinct response that Dib couldn't make out. He owed the human no explanation.

Dib didn't pursue it. Instead, his eye narrowed as Zim coughed into his fist again, face twisted. "What's wrong with you?" he asked.

Zim glowered with half lidded eyes. "The only thing wrong with Zim is that he's stuck in a tree with _you_."

"Hey! You _could_ just leave, you know. Don't try to pin your nasty, slimy, sick-y problems on _me_." Dib crossed his arms and tried to look menacing. Actually, though, he was concerned he might've crammed his own foot in his mouth just then. He sort of, kind of, in a not-at-all-serious way, needed Zim to get him out of the forest with his metal-leg thingies. There was no way he could've jumped from tree to tree by himself. It was why he'd followed Zim up the tree in the first place. But he wasn't about to let the alien know that.

Luckily, said alien merely closed one eye and mumbled. He looked miserable and sickly. He felt worse.

Zim was tired.

…_Click_.

His head bent back, clunking against the tree as his eyes slid shut, his PAK digging into his nerves.

The question was, _Why_. Why did Zim feel so…he shuddered to think it… _weak_?

… _Click_. _Click_.

It was a mystery.


	4. Rankle the Slab

_Note: I hate this chapter more than the last one. More than I hate puppies and smiling children. I wrote it four times. FOUR._

R A N K L E . T H E . S L A B

Heh. That was silly. Zim was being humorous; he _jests_!

Zim wasn't feeling weak. Not Invader _Zim_. No, he was merely feeling less mighty and awesome than usual.

_CliCKcliCKcliCK._

What_ was _that?

He bit his cheek, eye twitching, while Dib rattled on about something, waving his hands and yanking a pie chart out of his sleeve like a crackpot street magician. Zim didn't know what was going on; he was distracted. He started thinking. He started thinking harder than he'd ever had to… thought… think? Eh, before. In his long, admittedly perfect lifetime, Zim could remember few times when he ever felt so…_not_ perfect. _Something_ had to be draining him. He pretended to pay attention as Dib smacked the chart with a stick.

Then it struck him. Dib. The DIB! His eyes narrowed furiously, and he almost tried to stand. But then he started to shake, so he thought better of it and stayed where he was.

Eh, no. It couldn't have been the Dib. Zim had been keeping a close eye on the stink-boy. He was an invader, and invaders were always diligent. Besides, They'd been together for the past…how much time had passed? He would've seen. The human hadn't done anything. Yet. Zim's suspicious, wild, twitching eyes pinned Dib to the branch he was standing on and kept him there anyway. Yes, Zim would watch him closer now, but certainly it wasn't him. Despite the large head, Dib human wasn't smart enough or sneaky enough to catch Zim so off guard. That was crazy.

There was another ant marching up his leg, and Zim winced at it. He struggled to access information about the Earth creature, and could come up with none. He wasn't even sure he had the name right. Ant. That sounded funny. Stuuupid. So, what was the little beast? Unimportant, that's what. He flicked it away.

How frustrating. He was the great and almighty ZIM! He should not be having such difficulty with pitiful, pathetic, juice-filled brain task-ies! He was supposed to be-! Eh. Conquering _some_thing. Burgers, his brain supplied. Yes, Zim needed to be conquering the burgers. The Tallest would be disappointed if he did not-

…Hold on.

Zim's antennae gave a quick flick.

Perhaps… the burgers would have to wait.

"Quiet, stinky." He flapped a ] hand in Dib's face, temporarily silencing him as Zim's head cocked up in concentration. His back went rigid.

"What?" Dib said, miffed that he had been interrupted. "What is it?"

Zim turned again sharply, eyes bulging, alert.

"What?-! WHAT? Zim! What's going on?"

"SHH!" Zim slapped a glove onto Dib's face. "Shut your face!"

"Ugh. Zim!"

"_Silence_!"

"What are you-"

"Why will you _not stop spewing noises_?"

"Because you won't tell me wha-!" Dib's lips clamped shut. His ears perked, his cheeks immediately flushing with nervous blood. Ooooh.

Stiffly, they dragged themselves toward the edge of the branch, peering off through the brush, trying to see up the river. Thick clumps of leaves blocked the way. Zim, infuriated that they weren't responding to his telepathic demands to move, tried to access his laser to blast them away forcefully, and was met with a rejection from his PAK.

Clll-ick-Cliiick-cliCK.

Zim's eyes narrowed. What was that about? He tried to shove Dib off the branch in retaliation (because even if it wasn't Dib's fault, it was still Dib's fault), but Dib flailed and managed not to tumble to his death. This infuriated Zim further.

That awful, hideous whatever-it-was was getting closer.

It was a drowning wildebeest. It was a deaf guy singing karaoke.

Determined grunts and groans carried over the sound of rushing water. The sound of it was so grotesque. Zim's antennae picked up reports of movement. Ugly, squirmy, greasy movement. He and Dib both knew what it was. They knew, and yet they were still staring furiously past the leaves, trying to see through them, holding their breath and hoping against hope that they were mistaken.

It was a cow being sodomized by a hurricane.

Dib whined a little, knowing false hope could only last for so long. And Zim knew deep down that he was never wrong, so, you know, he had to be right. Sometimes his amazing-ness was both a gift and a curse.

A stubby, banana yellow kayak jumped over a rapid, right into their view, and they groaned.

It was Slab-freaking-Rankle.

"Hear me, _boys_! I know you're out here! Wah-oh." Slab dodged a boulder by doing some messy impromptu water maneuver. He just barely righted himself, all the while looking like a bulldog trying to stand up in a moving van.

Dib dragged a hand down his face.

"Police Chief Slab Rankle will. Find. YOU! Slab will not be defeated so easily this time; hear you me! You, young trespasser, _and_ your boy accomplice WILL be brought to jus-tice! You- …WHAT?" Single eye bulging, Slab's body became momentarily taut. His jaw fell. Body moving subconsciously, he crammed his plastic oar between two rocks and turned himself around, paddling with hysterical ferocity against the current. He managed only to slow his approach to the waterfall. He looked everywhere, yet found nothing to save him.

He did, however, spot his prey in the interim.

For a split second, three pairs of eyes locked and froze. Dib and Zim reeled away in horror. Despite his situation, Slab's lips curled up.

"Uhh…" Dib staggered back on the branch, as did Zim, and they tried to break contact with that staring eye. They felt trapped. Immediately, Dib imagined some freaky other dimension where Slab was their weird-smelling aunt who'd grabbed them in a death hug and refused to release. "Zim?" His voice cracked.

Slab stopped paddling, reached into his kayak and pulled out a police radio. He started barking coordinates in to the receiver, calling over backup, spit flying. Then: "I have you now, boys! Point ONE for Rankle the Slab!" With one double heave, Slab chucked both the radio and the oar into the water, abandoned his kayak and started to swim. Against the current. The man wasn't human.

As his kayak plummeted to its death, Slab dragged himself up out of the water and into the slimy marsh. One foot. Two foot. His legs made slurping, sucking sounds as they were yanked out of the bog and onto a wading log. He shook off chunks of mud.

"Uh, Zim? Alien scum? We should probably, you know, get out of here," Dib suggested wisely. "Now rather than later! Activate those evil spider legs or something! Go! Do it! DO IT!"

"Silence!" Little did he know, Zim had been _trying_ to activate those 'evil spider legs' long before Dib even opened his big flappy mouth.

'_Launch demanded!'_ Zim made his normal, subconscious command; it was something as common as breathing to him –he didn't even have to think about it, really - but for once he wasn't receiving the usual response.

_Denied. _

His PAK clicked and beeped, clicked and beeped, defying him. It was refusing an order? ZIM the PAK was refusing ZIM the body something it wanted? What in the name of Dirt was _going on_?-!

Slab trapped their tree in his sights, literally locking onto them with sniper vision through his mechanical faux eye. He hopped off the log, and lugged his legs through the mud and muck straight toward the tree trunk. He was going to climb.

Dib suffered a mild heart attack. "Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go-!"

Zim yelled at him to shut his gap. He was still struggling with himself (not something he usually had to do; naturally, he was unprepared), not noticing the way his vision grayed around the corners.

Dib's jaw dangled slack. A bug flew in. Then a swarm.

He looked up, but immediately turned away to block his eyes from the spontaneous rush of wind as a helicopter flew in. It pulled up a mere two dozen feet over their heads, hovering. A door slid open and a cop leaned out with a megaphone in one hand and a machine gun in the other. "Don't worry, boys. We're _just_ going to shoot you!"

"How-? W-what was-" Dib stuttered, in shock, "-Was that supposed to be _reassuring_?-!" He turned to Zim with pleading eyes, and did a quick double take. Dib must have been exhausted. Really, his brain needed to catch up with everything that was going on; he almost missed the impact of the sight right before his eyes. He was looking at Zim, curled in on himself, eyes unnaturally wide and teeth grit in what looked like pain- the worst kind of pain.

It was neat.

But now wasn't the time! Anyway, that wasn't what caught Dib's attention. What Dib focused on was Zim's flattened antennae- both of his _uncovered, undisguised, alien_ flattened antennae.

Suddenly unable to form proper sentences, Dib sputtered and pointed with big neon signs at Zim's head, trying to show someone- anyone! The cop stared, squinting one eye and rubbing his chin as if saying, 'I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.' Dib dug his nails into his cheeks and howled.

Zim started heaving air. _'Zim is in _danger!' he yelped at that little something in his mind that he knew was himself, but the resisting part of himself that he _really_ wished he could destroy. _'You are Zim! Thus, you will OBEY Zim! And Zim _demands launch_!'_

At that, he was met with no resistance, but rather a pause. And then, with much relief, his PAK legs activated. Zim sighed, stars dancing before his eyes. Finally.

Dib stopped his pointing very suddenly, trying to act normal (impossible), and wondered if Zim had seen him. He hoped not. Although the urge to expose Zim was strong, he knew it would only hinder him if he did. Right now. He would do it later. "Finally!" He heaved, echoing Zim's thoughts. He reached up to catch Zim's hand.

Zim moved away. "What's this? You think that I, your arch nemesis, would actually help _you_, my _enemy_? Enemy of ZIM? Hhhh-AH! You're on your _own_, smelly! Zim is out of here!" The mechanical legs caught the tree and spun him around, ready to take off in a leap. He looked over his shoulder and grinned, sticking out his tongue. "Have fun with-"

Dib blinked. Have fun with what? Midsentence, Zim's words cut off and his body starting to convulse, face twitching. His PAK legs retracted, activated, retracted, and then activated again. Dib staggered back. It looked as though Zim was being electrocuted, or having some sort of creepy alien seizure.

_Clickclickclickclickclick-!_

When the convulsions slowed to a stop, Zim looked stunned and terrified. "-you're…doom?" He finished, voice mousy.

Dib swallowed. He ventured to ask, "What-"

Zim started screaming. He screamed bloody freaking murder. Dib fell back on his butt, shimmying away for a moment, and then scrambling again to stand. "I'm bliiind!" Zim yowled. "I can't SEE! What is happening to ZIIIM!-?"

Startled by the yell, the cop in the helicopter lost his grip on the gun, and started to shoot. Bullets ricocheted everywhere. They tore through the leaves, struck the mud, nearly knocked Dib into a fifty-foot tumble. A string off them tore chunks of bark off the tree. Two of them struck the arm of one Slab Rankle just as he started reaching for their branch. They heard a yell, and then a crack, and then Slab fell.

Dib couldn't help but think that had worked out just fine.

The cop shot again in rapid succession and Dib's felt his left leg give out. His right arm gushed blood.

Ow. OW. Maybe not! Not so fine!

Zim's hands, meanwhile, clung to the tree behind him like a lifeline, blind eyes darting left and right, trying to follow the sounds. His antennae were picking up vibrations of movement all around him. The sound of the gun was too loud, clogging his senses and making him sick, the smell of fresh blood from Dib's wounds was nauseating, and the wind pelting him from no real direction because of the helicopter over their heads threw off his sense of balance. He had vertigo, and he wanted to get out of there. He wanted out of there _now_.

A bullet sliced through one antennae and half of the info abruptly gargled to a halt, replaced by pure, stark, unadulterated _agony_. He opened his mouth, but there was no scream.

A moment passed. "H-human!" he coughed. "Dib…stink. Tell Zim which way to go!"

"Augh…!" Dib yelped. He had an iron grip on his leg tight enough to cut off all circulation, and he needed to gasp for air before he could speak. His other arm felt like it was going to fall off. "Only if you pick me up! I'll d-direct you if you pick me up!"

"No! N…never!"

Dib screamed, "_Zim_!"

Zim fell apart. His broken antennae twitched madly, green blood flinging, and he was looking more like a bug with every second, desperate and tiny. He managed to pinpoint Dib's location only after a long stretch of focus. He reached down and hauled Dib up none too gently by the back of his shirt, carrying him at arm's length and with as little physical contact as his limited strength would allow.

"Hey!" The cop shrieked at them. He kept hitting the trigger of the gun, willing it to shoot the bullets it no longer had. "Don't move! Stay right there!"

"Twenty degrees to the right!" Dib yelled, still cradling his leg with his free hand. "No- the _right_, Zim! The right! What is the _matter_ with you? The side I'm on! Yeah, now jump. Wait, _not too hard_!" Abruptly, they were sailing through the air. Dib covered his eyes and screamed. The PAK legs scrambled at nothing as they went soaring right over the intended branch. With the tiniest of scraps, one leg found solidity on the next tree over. Zim managed to force a hold due to luck alone. They slid down the bark at least twenty feet until the friction slowed them enough to stop.

Panting, Zim and Dib collected themselves slowly. "_Human_!" Zim snapped.

"That was all you, Scum Face! Oh, owwie." Dib said, face twisting, eyes leaking badly. Teeth dug into his lip. Zim whimpered, too.

Down below, Slab started rising out of the muck like a swamp monster. He made a sick, gritty, desperate noise. Dib looked down first, through his misty eyes, and grimaced that much more. Aw, great. Just great. THAT guy again. Dib swore, he was going to-

Slab _roared_.

Their tree shook at its roots. None of the world was still.

"Tree branch slightly to the left, four feet down. Drop," Dib said, suddenly professional and ready for teamwork. Zim did as he was told, feeling the same. They landed cleanly. "Another branch ahead of you, just that way." Dib picked up Zim's hand and made him point. Zim catapulted them that way. Another clean land.

For a while, the process worked. It was strange. It wasn't the first time Zim and Dib had to work together, and it wasn't the first time Dib noticed that when they did, things actually seemed to go _right_. That in itself felt a little satisfying. Unnatural, but satisfying. They landed safely on another branch. Gradually, they were heading deeper into the woods, where the copter couldn't follow, and in the direction of the river flow, hopefully toward a town. It wasn't long until the sounds of Slab's yelling and the displaced air of the helicopter started to fade.

_Huh_, Dib thought. Maybe they would make it out of this.

Dib wasn't used to the feeling success. It felt… good. Yeah. Yeah, it did.

Hmm. Maybe it was just the massive blood loss, or the adrenaline pumping through his veins, or the gnawing hunger clouding his judgment, but Dib was starting to think that he and Zim, you know, sort of, kind of, in a _way…_ made a pretty good team.

s o m e t i m e l a t e r

It _had_ to have been the blood loss.

They were sitting now –sprawled, really- on the driest patch of dirt Dib had seen in a long time. They hadn't had to travel too far, but when you were running for your life, cringing in pain and dribbling blood from various wounds, fifteen minutes could feel like hours.

They were by a town; that much Dib could tell. He could hear it, the traffic, the people, but he couldn't move. He couldn't have if he tried. So, he laid there, panting, congealing, picking a rubber bullets out of his leg next to his worst enemy and partner in crime.

"What _happened_ to you back there?" Dib broke the silence. His head was clearing now that he was on solid ground, and he wasn't liking what he saw. Fifty feet in the air, swinging from tree to tree with a blind alien holding you by the shirt (which was torn now, by the way), wasn't a good time, he was sure, for deep thinking. Or for anything, actually.

Heh. A good team. Hehe. Dib made himself laugh. Funny.

_MAN_, he was uncomfortable.

"It was like you _malfunctioned_ or something," he snapped. He was just being mean at this point, and he knew it, but it was okay because Zim was evil. "Great timing that was, ZIM. Eh? Wasn't it? ZIM? Space monster? You could've killed us!"

Zim's lip curled up. "Dib-smelly, if you spew one more word of that insolent- ER! RR!- _language_-icky, Zim is going to-!"

"Going to _what_, Zim? _Blind_ me to death?"

Dib laughed at his own joke.

"For your _information_, worm-boy," Zim replied, "my superior Irken eyesight is returning as Zim _speaks_. So, if I were _you_, which I know I am not because I am Zim and my head is _not_ the size of a small galaxy, I'd shut my filthy Dibish _mouth_!"

_Click, click. _

_Click, click. _

"What IS that?"

Dib was trying to sulk. He was met with an excruciating force of pain when he tried to cross his arms, so he settled for sitting with his good elbow jammed awkwardly under the other. He didn't like it when Zim suddenly changed the subject. He was loath to look up. He tried to look as not-miserable and as stupidly stubborn as possible when he responded, "What was _what_?"

"That sound. Didn't you _hear_ it?" Zim was looking everywhere.

"No, I didn't," Dib said. He tilted his head, as though listening, but it was only for a second. "Is this some kind of trick? Are you trying to _trick_ me?" Dib got all mad. "I'm not falling for it, ZIM!"

Zim waved his hand, swatting away that nonexistent fly again (unless the fly was Dib; it existed in that case), and turned to listen.

He hissed through his teeth as that brought a fresh pang of soreness from his ripped antennae. He reached up and gently ran his fingers over the wound. The bullet hadn't torn through, thank goodness, but it _had_ ripped a decent sized chuck of flesh out of his favorite antennae. Zim growled. They were sensitive appendages, his antennae. It hurt like nothing else when they were injured. Luckily, It wasn't leaking blood driblets anymore; Zim pulled his glove away and saw no wetness. But it was still grimy and bent askew by a nub of congealed life-fluids at the site of the wound.

Which was odd. It wasn't healing right.

Cllll-_ick_.

"There it goes again," Zim muttered. "I've been hearing it for a while now. It sounds like… sounds like…" His eyes opened slowly, vision clearing just a bit more.

Like a failing hard drive disk.

He rushed to press the back of his hand against a pink circle on his PAK. It was… hot.

Oh, dookie.


	5. ZIM the Unfortunate

_NOTE: Look out! Disjointed and jumpy writing ahead, and plot holes! Plot Holes! Plot Holes EVERYWHERE! Sacrifice the women and children! Save me! SAVE ME! Or, uh… Actually, you know what? I think I'm gonna just embrace it. Mmyup. C: _

Z I M . T H E . U N F O R T U N A T E

In a panic, Zim mentally accessed his PAK information. His eyes darted from word to word faster than he could read them. The more he saw, the more his guts clenched, the more a scream built in his throat that he wasn't going to let out. Charging Cell: _EMPTY._ Atmospheric Processer: 6 percent. Gravity Stabilizer: 6 percent. Cognitive Power: 4 percent. PAK weapons: 2 percent. He kept scanning, holding his breath in preparation to find-

_Zimness: 4 percent. _

He punched the tree between his legs. Shaking his hand, his face screwed up like he'd just sucked a lemon. Defiant, stupid Earth tree.

Zim knew he had at least two months before his charge date; he'd never missed it before, but such an advanced depletion... Perhaps it was the stress. He'd been forcing his poor into overtime to heal his water burns, to activate his PAK limbs, tosimplybreathe Earth's filthy oxygen. All the _stress_! Even Irken technology had its limits.

His PAK was draining the life from his body. This was why he hadn't thought to destroy the Dib despite so much ample opportunity. This is why he was feeling so heavy. This is why his mind was feeling slower and more…harder…to work with than usual. Unnecessary functions were being deactivated. If he didn't reach electricity soon, Zim would end up falling into active hibernation. What would happen then? He wasn't quite sure.

Theoretically, his emergency backup system would take effect, and he'd become nothing more than a mechanical zombie until his PAK found what it was looking for. In that time, he would probably reveal himself to a hundred or more humans before he managed to find a charging station, all essentially in his sleep. He'd be captured for sure. And then, eventually…

He scowled.

Zim couldn't let that happen. Not in front of the humans. Not in front of _the Dib_, who would definitely use it as an opportunity to expose him for what he truly was, deep down in his spooch. With a shudder, Zim imagined his guts fermenting in a pickle jar. Not the jar. Anything but the jar.

He needed to find a power source.

"Hey!" Dib yelped. "You're not even listening to me!"

Zim looked up. "You wouldn't happen to have an electrical current running through that planet sized head of yours, would you?"

"Enough with the head jokes! I don't get why people think they're so funny! They're not _funny_! That hurts my self-esteem!" Dib squawked. He pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to calm down. His patience was wearing thin. "_Anyway_, as I was saying, I think I might have a plan to get me- er, _us_ out of all this mess with the police. But I'm going to need help. It involves breaking a few federal laws."

"Child's play! I could break seven federal laws with my eyes closed and one hand held behind my back! I am ZIM! OH, so Zim am I."

"I'm not _challenging_ you, you moron!" Dib rubbed his forehead, groaning. He was getting a headache. He wanted to go home and take a nap, curl up with a nice sci-fi book and a cup of warm milk, maybe a bologna sandwich. That is, unless Gaz hadn't eaten it all like last time. "Look, if we're going to pull this off, I need your cooperation. Then, we can go right back to being enemies. Deal?"

"Why should I?" Zim's eyes narrowed to slits. "I don't trust you."

"I don't trust you either! But just this once, I think we have to put all that aside. We both have too much to lose. We need to work together. For the _good of all mankind_!" Dib said this with the utmost conviction in his voice. An explosion rocked the world behind him and his hair thrashed as an impossible deluge of wind shot through the area. Dramatically. Because really, where would the Earth be if Dib wasn't around to protect it? In a weasel-infested hell, that's where. Probably.

Zim muttered. He looked left and saw woods. He looked right. More woods. No contact with GIR or Minimoose. And PAK failing. His face screwed up in hate. He knew that if his PAK weren't stunting his brain functions, he'd be able to think of an awesome plan out of this and away from the human. But… But… "_Ugh."_

"_Ugh_?"

"Hrrgh."

"You sound constipated. Is that a yes or a no?"

"Mmn."

"I don't follow."

"YES, Dib-stinky-beast-ugly-rat-bighead-smell-POOP! YES! Does Zim have to spell it out for you? Y-E-H-S! YES!"

Dib blinked. Somewhere inside, he hadn't expected that. The acceptance, anyway, not the butchering Zim did of that poor word. "R-really?"

"_Yeees_," Zim hissed, "We will cooperate just this _once_. If you find Zim electricity, he will help you with your little doomy doomed plan. Which is doomed."

"You haven't even heard what it is yet!"

Zim shrugged.

"Why do you need electricity, anyway?"

"To feed my pet raccoon. He's hungry for protons. Why _else_?"

Dib squinted. His eyebrows drew together and his lips pinched, confused and mistrustful. Chary, even. Chary was the perfect word to describe his expression. "Something tells me your not being exactly honest." What makes you say that, Dib? "Okay. But if this is some weird alien deception technique to destroy the world, I'm going to be really peeved! And boy, will I do… something… you know, to STOP YEEEWW!"

Yes, well… Furious and annoyed, Zim glared daggers at Dib's ugly face, imagining with some satisfaction what it would look like after a quick mauling by a pack of bears.

They sat quietly for a long time.

"Hey, um… on a separate matter _entirely_ that has no business coming up in this conversation," Dib fished for words. He looked around at the trees and the dirt. There were dead leaves all over the floor. He picked one up and crushed it in his hand, enjoying the crunch, letting the debris sprinkle through his fingers. "I've been thinking. I don't like you."

"Yes."

"You don't like me."

"Oh, how true that sentence is."

"And we don't trust each other. That being the case, doesn't this situation strike you as a little too… intricate?"

"…Eh?"

"What I mean to say is, all of this stuff -the poop, the prison, the boat, the Slab, the injuries… It just seems kind of predetermined. Both of us are currently incapacitated, and we're facing a common enemy (i.e. Slab Rankle). So, it's like, logically, we HAVE to work together if we want everything to go back to normal, you know? If all these circumstance hadn't come together exactly the way they did, and they're improbable as improbable can get, mind you, do you really think we'd be sitting here like this, not trying to destroy each other? Don't you think that's suspicious? It's like some outside power is setting us up, _forcing_ us to be together against our will to appease their own sick hobby."

"Suspicious," agreed Zim despite himself. He stroked his beard in thought, lips pinching. Quite suspicious, indeed. "How about we DON'T put aside our differences, and we continue being bitter enemies? To spite the power."

"My God. Let's do it!"

THE END.

Hurray!

Oh, no, wait. That was wrong. What did I just do there? Hang on a sec.

"Don't you think that's suspicious?" Dib asked again. For the first time.

"LIES AND SLANDER!" exploded Zim, arms flailing furiously. "You speak _crazy_, human. When will it end; when will the crazy END?"

Dib sighed, feeling something inside of him break off and die. Somewhere in the universe, an omnipotent power bridled with satisfaction. "Well… I guess that _was_ sort of improbable."

"Improbable like your head."

For a long time after that, there was much silence. They contemplated the possibility that something as dubious as an omnipotent force sapping their freewill could exist, and it frightened them. It distracted them from their wounds, from their troubles. In fact, their pain was so overshadowed by alarm that, for the time, they were almost comfortable, and then they were grateful to it- grateful to the force. It was calming. It was benevolent. All hail the omnipotent force.

And then they decided to go ahead and move the plot forward.

"So, uh, hey. What was I saying?" before the unnecessary silliness broke a hole clean through the story. "Oh, yeah. Plan. Plan… A plaaaaaan to save our butts. Right. I was thinking we could sneak in to the police station and delete our criminal records from the main computer! …Wait, no, that wasn't it. My idea was to find a zombie leprechaun to do our bidding. But I guess this other plan could work, too."

"No, Zim likes the leprechaun thing. Zim wants that one."

Dib stroked his chin, where beards refused to grow, and hummed thoughtfully. "Hacking into the mainframe should be easy. It's sneaking in to the building that's going to be hard. We'll have to find disguises. Definitely change out of these jumpsuits."

"The leprechaun. Zim _demands_ the zombie leprechaun."

"And we need to get some food. I'm _starving_."

Zim sighed. He was starting to have his doubts that the zombie leprechaun slave plan would ever be brought to fruition, and it was depressing him. He reached around to his PAK and pressed on the center pad, feeling it slip aside. He reached his hand in and dug around until he pulled out a waffle, syrup drenched. "_Here_, Dib-stink. Cram this down your mouth hole if it will shut you up."

Click-ck-ck. The PAK resented this act.

Dib's mouth immediately flooded with drool- unhealthy amounts. His pupils dilated. He snatched the waffle from Zim's hand and gobbled it up as though it was human brains and he was one of the living dead. The waffle was cold and soggy, but it went down nice. He sighed. While Dib proceeded to happily lick the syrup off his fingers (much to Zim's disgust), his head caught up with his stomach. He stopped moving mid lick and let his eyes flick to his hand. It drew away. "Em. Huh. Why were you carrying around a waffle?"

Zim blinked. "I'unno."

Dib's eyes widened. Why? Why was Zim carrying around a waffle? His mind stressed the gullibility he'd just shown. His muscles grew tense and his arms shook, breath hitching. He, Dib, had just eaten a waffle that Zim gave him. From ZIM. "Oh, you sick fiend! What did you just do to me?-!"

Zim's eyes narrowed like he was having trouble thinking. "I gave the Dib a waffle."

Dib pressed on his stomach with both hands, groaning as a sudden wave of sick overtook him. This was it. He was going to die. Death by waffle! Oh, cruel fate!

Actually, he didn't feel that bad.

"Did…did you really not do anything to it?"

"Don't think so. Maybe."

Dib looked at Zim with renewed distrust and confusion. And maybe, somewhere in there, there was also a touch of worry. "…What's _wrong_ with you?"

"Heh?"

"You haven't been acting right for a while now. I mean, seriously. You could've poisoned me just now, but you didn't. Zim, you gave me a _waffle_."

Zim seemed to contemplate this. He scratched the side of his face, hummed, looked off the right, up, down, left. Yes, much contemplating did Zim do. Then he gasped. "You're _right_!"

Dib drew back in horror. "You just acknowledged that I was right!"

Zim gasped louder, gloves slapping onto his face.

"Are you dying?" Dib asked. He looked afraid. "Am _I_ dying? Am I already dead?" He felt his face to see if it was different. "This had better not be heaven! My whole body's still sore! I hate you, ZIM!"

"Quiet your face!" Zim snapped. He gave himself a once over. His eyesight was back. His skin was still off-pigment and secreting slimy sweat, but otherwise holding up. Hearing? Check. Smell? (Ugh) Check. He ran through the mental list of current system performance again and nearly yelled. In fact, he did yell. His personality. His beautiful, winning, perfect personality was down by another percent. Three percent Zimness left. "ZIM! I am ZIM! Dib, tell Zim who he is!"

"Why-"

"_Tell me_!"

"You're freaking me out!"

"Say my name, DIB!"

"That did _not_ help with the freaking out issue! ZIM, okay? ZIM!"

Yes.

Yesss...

Zim was stiff. His left eye twitched just a little. With rigid movement, he sat back, balancing on his hands. Then leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his knees. His eyes closed. Dib wasn't sure how to respond. He looked everywhere but at Zim for the next several minutes.

He didn't understand what was going on, and that scared him more than anything else. Dib bit down on his lower lip, brows furrowing while he thought. "That…that electricity you said you needed isn't just for your pet raccoon, is it, Zim."

Zim sighed, shoulders slumping.

More silence.

"I suppose you're going to try and exploit this, then," Zim added, glaring with all the resentment he could muster, which was a lot. "Not that I'll let you. Zim still has enough power to blow a hole through that cow dropping you call a face if need be."

Dib thought about it, grimacing. That didn't sound promising. "…No. I'm not going to do that."

Zim's eyes stung with the urge to blink, but he was too confused to remember how to work his eyelids. "Dib-stink say what?"

"I won't. Or more specifically, I can't. I don't have my laptop and I still need you if we're going to hack the security system at the police station. _Then_, I'll expose you for the revolting space monster that you are."

"Oh. Eh." Zim almost sagged with relief. The world made sense again. Good. "Then what are you sitting around here for, lazy stink-beast? No time for that! Let's go into that filthy town and find Zim a power source!"

m a n y . t i m e . t h i n g i e s . l a t e r

They'd walked. They walked for over a mile, it felt like, but that could've been Dib's imagination. His leg was killing him. He tried not to limp in the beginning, not wanting Zim to see his weakness, but there was no hiding it now. He thanked whoever was up there that they started hearing car horns not too long ago. They even passed a few houses so far, though they'd been sparse and far between. Now they were nearing buildings. Dib could see the tops of them through the trees, and then straight ahead as they got closer. The trees thinned and became paved roads.

Zim's nerves were biting at him. He reached up and felt at the cover over his antennae to make sure it was still there. He'd made it out of the upper half of Dib's jumpsuit, having cut it off the boy with his claw when Dib had his back turned, an act that spurned the worm-child to tackle him seconds later. Dib had ripped off Zim's sleeves in retaliation and tied them around his waist to keep the remaining half of his outfit from falling down. All in all, though, they looked disgusting and weird, but not _alien_. So to speak.

Dib bent over and grabbed his naked stomach for the third time in the past several minutes, moaning and groaning and looking generally miserable. "I… I don't think that waffle was very fresh," he gasped. Their walk toward civilization was becoming progressively harder and he cringed as a particularly bad cramp bit through his gut. It felt like mayonnaise and corn day all over again.

"Uh huh."

"Zim? Seriously, I think I'm gonna-" Dib stopped short. "Oh no."

"That's nice."

"Ngh-! Ah! Look out!"

Dib shoved past Zim and dove behind the nearest bush with a gusto. The next few minutes were filled with awfulness, pain, and _more pain! _For Dib. Zim, on the other hand, kept walking-

"Oh God! _There's no toilet paper_!"

-until he caught sight of his own reflection in the window of a nearby building. It stopped him dead in his tracks, knocked him out of his daydream. That was one handsome Zim over there.

But that wasn't important (nonsense; of course it was). What _was_ important was his _appearance_. A gloved hand drifted up to pull down an eyelid. He opened his mouth and stared down his throat. Zim did not look healthy.

He noticed with annoyance that he wasn't subconsciously forcing perfect posture like usual. Focused on other things, he'd let himself slip into the same hunched, bow-shouldered slump he developed while working as a scientist on Vort, one that he thought he had _fixed_. With defiance, he did so now. His eyes were sinking into his skull and he was beginning to look sick. Pale, yellow-green. He had bruises and cuts down the length of his exposed arms, disappearing into his gloves.

Ah. That reminded him. With a hiss, he adjusted the makeshift turban on his head so that his delicate injured antennae was better hidden. Zim would have his revenge for his lack of sleeves later. Oh, how Dib would pay.

"It's _horrible_! Horriblllllle!"

Oh, right.

"MWAH hahahaha! HAHAHAHA!" Zim laughed.

"You jerk! I'll get…you-! Oooh, dearest Bigfoot."

"You're pathetic human digestive system is obviously not suited to handle Irk's _superior…_superior-_! _Uh, what's the word I'm looking for. Um. Hm... Ingredients! Yeah, there it is."

"Well, for such a superior race, that cyborg brain of yours sure seems to be shutting down fast! How long until you start forgetting your name, eh, alien?" Dib chuckled his own evil laugh, but the effect was sort of downgraded by his current… state of affairs. Still, it didn't stop Zim from grimacing deep.

It took Dib another few minutes (including two false finishes) before he was finally ready to go. Zim was disgusted with him. The whole process of waste making was sickening to him, but what Dib had just done to that bush, _that_ was _revolting_.

Dib joined him next to the building and blinked at their reflection. "Aw, _man_! We look like we just broke out of prison!" He wasn't wearing any shirt. His white, scrawny torso and arms were completely coated in dirt and blood and clotted wounds. He waved them around a little. That just made him wince. Dried blood stained his pants where the rubber bullet dug in. And it still hurt. His whole body hurt badly. Luckily, he was pretty used to getting beaten to a pulp, more from Gaz's hand than from Zim's oddly enough, but used to it nonetheless.

"That may be, stupid Dib-monkey, because we DID just break out of prison."

"Technically, we didn't. We never got into the prison in the first place."

"_Your big head is full of LIIIES_!" Zim's claws ripped at the air, and as though for added emphasis, he started twitching. Violently. Muscles spasms shook his whole body. It was both amusing and terrifying. Dib took a step back. And then it stopped. "Okay, let's move on now."

"…Mk."

So, they moved on, Zim with his slumping shoulders and ripped sleeveless jumpsuit, and Dib with no shirt, bloodstains, and battered skin. They looked like thugs. Or two idiots on the run from the police for creating a giant poop cyclone and trying to stop aforementioned poop cyclone respectively. Yep. That's what they looked like.

As anyone could well imagine, Dib was beginning to feel a little self-conscious. He rubbed his arm and let his eyes roam, trying not to focus too long on any one thing. There was a little boy staring at them from the window of a house, and that eventually jailed his attention. Dib waved awkwardly. A woman walked over from behind, saw him, and flailed in terror. She dragged the boy from the window and drew the blinds, peaking through a crack. Dib's waving hand curled away.

A lot more walking landed him and Zim around a corner. Suddenly their quiet side street turned into a busy shopping district. Dib groaned. He had no idea what town they were in, but it looked fancy. If the brand names in the store windows were of any indication, it was definitely much wealthier than his own, and the citizens walking around appeared unaccustomed to seeing poorer folk mucking up their sidewalks.

Zim was sneering and glaring at people left and right. One man in a sweater vest actually crossed the street to get out of their way. Dib wanted to tell Zim to stop, but he didn't. _Why_ didn't he? The people were noticing him. They looked uneasy when he caught their eyes. It was awful, but at the same time… Dib didn't know what he was thinking. They were afraid of him! Dib! He was actually-! It was-! …Kind of thrilling.

Dib was a horrible person.

"Okay, first things first. We need disguises. We can't keep drawing this much attention. It's only a matter of time before someone gets scared enough to call the police... Zim? Space boy?"

The alien's eyelids were drooping weirdly, one more than the other. Dib knocked him in the side of the head and Zim shrieked, cutting at the air with his fists, attacking an enemy neither of them could see. Dib was unimpressed; he waited for it to pass. Finally, when Zim calmed down enough to notice there was no one trying to take his teeth out -as he'd thought- he turned to Dib and seemed surprised to see him standing there. He squinted, the yellowing skin on his face wrinkling like old leather. "Who're you?"

"Your twin brother, Magnific-o."

Zim blinked.

"Oh yeah."

"Anyway, we need to… Uh. Actually, I just realized, we don't have any money. How're we going to afford all this?"

"You spit words too much, Magnific-o," Zim said. His mouth twitched. "_Dib_. Zim can handle the money problem, yeah."

"What?" First of all, the way Zim was speaking was starting to sound really weird. Weird even for Zim. Secondly… What?

"_Too much words_! You're like a dirty Earth weasel worm."

"Weasels can't even talk! And they're not worms."

"Follow Zim, stinky antler-beast, and let your brain meats be learned by a genius."

Dib stopped walking and watched Zim casually push open the door of a shop. He looked up at the sign and paled a little. Swallowing deeply, he muttered, "…So many things wrong with that sentence," before scurrying off to catch up.

Zim was rummaging through a display of fancy shirts. He'd made a mess of them, tossing ones he didn't like into a pile at his feet, which was nearly all of them. Dib watched the alien pick up a shirt and sniff it, make a face and let it fall. Next. The process repeated. He grit his teeth. Behind round glasses too big for his face, Dib's eyes were darting around the store, just waiting for someone to notice and come rushing over and-

"Can I help-"

"It's a free country! You can't throw us out! We're not doing anything wrong! _WE'RE NORMAL_!"

The pocket of silence following that was so thick, Dib couldn't breathe. He was shocked out of his skin, heart thudding a hundred miles a minute. Both Zim and the saleswoman were staring at him with questions in their eyes, and Dib could do nothing more than look back. A slow, dripping, sticky feeling started sliding from the top of his head down to the soles of his feet, making him warm and uncomfortable all over. He'd just… he'd just said… Widening, hysterical eyes turned to Zim. All the oxygen was sucked out of his throat.

The saleswoman pinched her fat lips. She was a large, stupid looking kind of lady. "Alright-y then!" She chirped. "If there's anything either of you need, I'll be right over there!" And she frolicked away.

Zim grinned. "Woo! That went smoothly."

Dib sucked in some air and trembled a little. "Uh, yeah. I think that went rather well."

Zim turned around and grabbed a shirt off a cart. He held it up, examined it, smelled it, licked it, and smacked his lips, remaining silent. Dib watched curiously as nothing more seemed to happen. It was actually a little boring. He scratched his cheek and looked around at the store again. It was so clean in there. And ritzy. Dib had never been inside such a nice looking place; it was kind of intimidating. He wasn't sure how to act. Awkwardly, he started rocking back and forth on his heels, whistling some indiscriminate tune that was obviously made up on the spot.

Which was why he almost choked when something dark was shoved over his head and the world vanished. He grunted and thrashed, struggling against the horror. It wasn't until he managed to find a hole in the fabric that he realized it was a shirt. With a gasp for air, he yanked it on and relished in the sensation of freedom. "What the hell, Zim!"

"Turn around for your future overlord."

"You could've killed me! Again! With a shirt; _wow_, I'm pathetic."

Zim grabbed his shoulder and forced him to spin. Dib wished he knew what was going on. "If you weren't so boney, _hu_man, you might be able to fill out clothes better. There's nothing more Zim can do for you. You disgust me! Be gone now while Zim shops." Zim waved him away. Dib looked down at himself, feeling rather insulted.

"What's wrong with the way I look?" He whined. He walked away from Zim, not wanting to watch the alien dig through anymore clothes. At least he wasn't talking in tongues anymore.

On the back wall, he found a full length mirror. His reflection blinked back at him in all of its pale, sallow, eleven-year-old glory, and Dib struck a pose. He didn't care what Zim said. He was sexy. The shirt Zim had chosen for him was striped blue and gray, long-sleeved, and soft as a baby rabbit. He hugged himself with a giddy hum. Sexy? Heck yes. Cuddly? You know it.

When Zim found him again, he was decked out in a wine-red trench coat, a fake mustache, and a pair of women's sunglasses. The turban was gone. He was wearing a top hat. Dib squinted at the odd combination. "You look stupid. And…how are those glasses staying on your face? You have no nose."

"Black magic."

"Ah. Did you get rid of the jumpsuit?"

"Woah!" Dib stumbled away in alarm when Zim opened the coat with both hands. It had just seemed so much like the homeless man that flashed people in the park that Dib's first instinct was to shield his eyes, afraid he might see something he really didn't want to see. But when he opened one a second later, it was safe. Zim was fully clothed under there. Thank God.

Zim ran a glove over the pink shirt, straight down to the black leggings running into his boots. It was as similar, Dib assumed, as Zim could get to his regular uniform. "Put this on so we can leave and you can find your future slave-master electricity! Zim demands it! He demands it with his slimiest spooch drippings! Do not refuse the spooch!" He chucked a kilt in Dib's face.

Dib pulled it away, held it up, and recoiled. "I'm not wearing that!"

"Wear it! WEAAR IIIIIIT-" Zim erupted into a fit of hacking coughs. Dib drew back in disgust as little flakes of ugly green phlegm came spewing out of the aliens mouth.

"Okay! I'll wear it! Just stop doing that! Sheesh, Zim." He ducked behind the mirror and grumbled furiously as he wiggled out of the jumpsuit bottom and into the blue tartan kilt. He grimaced. Why were they even _selling_ these things here?

When he walked out from behind the mirror, shoulders slumped and a sneer on his face, Zim stopped coughing and stared. "I'm brilliant!"

Dib muttered something indistinct.

"And now, for the finishing touch-!" Zim slapped a matching hat down on Dib's head, subduing the scythe. Dib started grinding his teeth. "_It's perfect_! Let's go."

"Uh, Zim? Aren't you forgetting something?"

"_Liar_!"

"You didn't pay! Moron."

Zim looked at Dib for a long time, one of his eyes more open than the other, rubbing his chin.

Dib waited. He waved a hand in front of the aliens blank face, growing impatient. He stopped. His hand fell. "You weren't planning on paying, were you."

"Nnnn-o."

"What is _wrong_ with you?"

"Boys?" The saleswoman was back, singing in that overly-chipper voice of hers. She licked a bit of lipstick off of her front tooth. "Did I hear you call my name? Oh! I see you've found some clothes! You look ravishing! Would you like me to ring those up?"

"Uuuh! Uh!" Dib and Zim were backing away from her. They couldn't have looked more disturbed if her face had fallen off right then and there. "No, that's okay! We're just going to put them back now-"

"Later, stink-boy!" Zim was out of there. Alarms and whistles went off everywhere as he shot through the front doors. The whole store grew dark and cold. Dib looked up at the saleswoman, dread filling his gut like millions of little wriggling snakes, and watched with horror as the grin disappeared from her face. _Shop-lift-ers_, she mouthed. Finger trembling, she pointed at his face. Her mouth impossibly wide, hissing white noise. Security guards dropped down from the ceiling. Dib screamed.

Zim, who was running down the sidewalk with one hand on his head to protect the hat, did a double take when Dib sprinted past him a second later, kilt flapping wildly in the wind.


	6. Crazy for the Dib

_Note: Whenever I read Fanfics, my brain turns off. Whether I want it to or not. For instance: "And than Zim, Dib, and AAALL the other IZ characatures catapulted in to teh stars on a gyant space unicorn, were they lived happily ever afder. De end." ME: "Hawhaw! That was magical! It made perfect sense!" _

_:C_

C R A Z Y F O R T H E D I B

"You… Scum," Dib huffed. He laughed a little, breathlessly, and that disturbed him. It bubbled up in his lungs before he could suppress it and once it started, he was hard-pressed to stop. In fact, he started laughing louder, more excitedly. It was like a stopper in his chest was shoved away and a buildup of crud was finally rushing out. He felt like he might float away, the sensation both impressive and scary. His knees shook. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins like it was running through some sort of _massive_ pumping…_thing_! GAAAH- It was great! Who knew stealing stuff could be so much fun? Dib's body twitched with tingly little aftershocks.

"Dib-human," Zim groaned. It snapped Dib out of his stupor.

"Oh, right. The whole electricity thing."

"You ugly…filthy thing boy stink. Yes. Find Zim his electricity. Now." Zim was breathing heavily. He looked up at the sky and growled. It looked grayer than usual up there. Everything looked grayer than usual. He blinked one eyelid at a time.

"Not now, ZIM. First we need to find the police station." Dib peaked around the corner and checked to see if anyone was following them. Two security guards were roving the area, but seemed pretty lost. Dib grinned.

"No. NO! That wasn't part of the deal! Obey me! Zim got you your disguise! OBEY ME!"

"All you did was grab them and run," Dib said. "Besides, if we're going to do this, we need to do it now before time runs out. Slab is after us, in case you've _forgotten_. How vulnerable would we be if we were just sitting in a coffee shop or something with your back plugged into the wall? Huh? Huh? We need to do this _now_." He looked around the wall again. "Looks like the coast is clear."

"This has nothing to do with beaches! Zim wants to charge!"

"Let's go!"

Dib darted around the corner, kilt fluttering like a cape, and left Zim to fume. "NGHR-! That insolent little-! I should've _known_ better than to put even the slightest of my trust in the _hu_man! What was I thinking? _Raugh_! EH, EH-!"

Fine! "If the Dib won't help Zim, then _ZIM_ will help Zim! I'll just find a power source by my self- ooh, sparkly." Zim shuffled over to a broken hubcap that sat curled and dented against the wall. It looked like it had been beaten with a mallet, it was in such bad shape. But it was still bright and reflective, and Zim's eyes glittered when he saw- "NO! No, must stay focused! Must find _power_! For the good of the mission!"

He dropped the glittering plate and ran out of that alley like a madman on a mission. The whole planet was against him! Distracting shinnies everywhere! Zim spotted Dib dodging through crowds and stopping random passer-bys for directions. The boy had that determined, '_Defender of Earth_,' glint in his eye and Zim figured he had a good few solid minutes before Dib snapped out of it, noticed the alien was missing, and went looking for him again.

Zim took off in the opposite direction.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Dib was saying. "Miss? Ah…Sir! Can you help me? Hey! I just need directions to-! Yo, lady! Yeah, you! No, don't do that-! YAAAH!" Dib jumped away from that crazy woman before she got a chance to give him a face full of pain. He'd experienced pepper spray before and it was Not. Fun. He didn't want to deal with that again. These people weren't helping. He wasn't even dressed in a jumpsuit anymore. He looked clean, more or less. What did they want from him? "Hey, space boy! I could use a little help over-…?"

Dib spun around on himself, peeking between people's legs, and into shop windows. Eyebrows cocked, he ran back toward the ally and saw no one. Panicking slightly, he turned into the street and looked from left to right as quickly as his head could turn. It was by some weird stroke of luck alone that he managed to catch sight of a red trench coat disappearing around the street corner about fifty yards down. "Space boy?"

Needless to say, Dib ran. He wasn't about to let the alien get away from him that easily.

Zim was stumbling from storefront to storefront, shoving his face against the windows, hoping to see an open outlet _somewhere_. He was struggling to remember what he was doing. _Power_, his PAK kept supplying. _Power_. But it was getting difficult, and he wasn't finding what he needed. Plus, on top of everything, his legs were moving funny. He blamed the Dib.

Speaking of the human.

"Zim! What'd you run away like that for? You were trying to ditch me, weren't you. WEREN'T YOU!-?"

"Nonsense! Oh, wait a minute. Yes. _Filthy_ human. I'll find the power source without _you_."

"Come on! You look fine! You can last for one more hour. We'll find the police station, hack their system, delete our files, and be out of there before the sun sets. If we wait too much longer, we'll _both_ be doomed. And I don't care about you, but I can't go to jail for the rest of my life! I've got homework."

"I don't care! Zim needs to charge!"

"What are you, stupid? Listen!" Dib grabbed the aliens shoulders and spun him around until they were forced to look eye to eye. Zim jerked out of his grip. "You saw how fast Rankle tracked us down before. I'm just being realistic in assuming he's going to be able to do it again, disguises or no! We need to destroy our criminal records, or we won't be safe anywhere we go. Staying in one place for more than five minutes could mean our end, and _you_ know it! You're more paranoid than I am."

Zim snorted. Dib was far more paranoid than he was, but…maybe it was just his failing brain, but no matter how hard he tried, Zim just couldn't deny the rest of what the Earth rot had said. He couldn't risk being captured now.

"So? What's it going to be? Can you hold out for an hour?" Dib pressed.

Mentally, Zim accessed his stats. He grimaced. If he didn't overdo it, he could probably last even a little longer than that, but he'd be cutting it close. And Zim didn't like them odds. He started to shake his head.

"Or," Dib said, glasses reflecting the light in a devious flash, "is the almighty Zim too _weak_?"

The fake mustache twitched with Zim's upper lip.

Dib fought a grin.

"Weak?" Zim's eyes narrowed to slits. He tore off the sunglasses and crushed them in his fist. "Invader Zim? WEAK? ZIM!-? Nothing but potato tainted _propaganda_! You smelly human. Point me to the feeble po-lice center! Let's end this… like _moose_!"

"Like men."

"I said moose and I meant it!"

Yes. Those words lit fires in their bellies. When Dib and Zim took off, it was with determination in their guts and much idiocy in their heads.

h e r p – a – d e r p

Thirty minutes later, the destructive duo was standing in front of the towns very small, very pathetic looking police station. It was approximately the size of a café. They were pumped. _Dib_ was pumped. Zim was rubbing his gloves together and bouncing along to the resulting squeaky noises.

"This is it, Zim. We can't mess this up now. "

"Goodness no."

"You remember the plan, right?"

"I do not."

"Good. Let's do this."

"Do it to it."

"Your brain's falling apart, isn't it."

"I'm going to die."

"Alright, sounds good. We'll make this quick."

He took a deep, finalizing breath to set his nerves. Dib was trying not to noticed that Zim wasn't acting like himself. He'd kept track of the gradual decline of the aliens normal disposition as it occurred. Was it nice not to deal with all the screaming and Zim-induced-annoyances? Yes. It was very nice. SO NICE. But at the same time, it sort of made his stomach twist. The oddity of it was making him uneasy, just adding to his bundling stress. Stupid Zim.

When they walked inside, Dib immediately turned around and stepped back out to make sure they'd entered the right building. He checked the doorway to make sure they hadn't passed through an inter-dimensional portal. They hadn't. "How is it so BIG in here?-!" Small, unintimidating building outside- huge, hectic, ultra-modern police station inside. Dib swallowed a thick glob of spit. Why was his life so difficult?

There was a man with a buzz cut sitting handcuffed to a chair against the wall where they walked in, and a woman in her underwear sitting two seats down. A policeman with a gun stood stationary in the corner, not acknowledging the fly buzzing around his head, while other cops and people in suits walked in and out of two open doorways, grabbing things from filing cabinets and talking. The front desk was long and had four people behind it, two talking on phones. It was noisy. It was busy. The walls were beige and plain, and there was a blown-up poster on one of them that said OBEY in big red letters.

"Is, uh, there something you two…boys need?" One cop behind the counter was eyeballing Dib's kilt.

Dib yelped, voice reaching a new octave-high. He cleared his throat. "Yes, please. We would, you know, if you could-" he rolled his wrist. "…We're doing an assignmeblah! I mean, a school assignment! Homework! On the police…because they're just, oh, so-"

"-nice examples of bald human icky!" Zim supplied.

Dib's head turned to Zim very slowly.

Zim smiled.

"Why, yes." The cop looked pleased with himself. "Yes, we are."

Dib squinted his eyes. "Uuh. Yep. And, um. We were just wondering if you wouldn't mind taking us on a…tour?"

"ERRM. Hm. I dunno. We're not really supposed to do that kind of stuff."

"What IF-!" Zim exploded, too loudly and too dramatically. "What if Zim did THIS." Dib and the cop cringed in unison as Zim, in one swift motion, ripped the fake mustache clean off his skin. His eyes teared. He held it up and jiggled it in front of the man's face, smiling oddly and making little humming noises. The cop watched the hair dance. Dib slapped his forehead.

"…I'll do it."

"What?" Dib asked.

"I'll just run this by the Chief."

"Seriously?"

The cop turned around and left the room.

"…SERIOUSLY?" Dib was left to gape. Zim noticed his jaw hanging slack and gave it an experimental poke. It swayed back and forth. Dib closed his mouth. Huh. Um. Alright-y. Relaxing his body, he breathed a quiet huff of air in relief. That had worked out surprisingly well.

Feeling rather proud of himself, he leaned his back against the counter and let himself hang out. "Ooh yeeeah."

Next to him, Zim was squinting irately at the fake mustache dangling, stuck to the finger of his glove. He flapped it around, but it didn't come off. He grabbed it with the other hand, and that did the trick until he realized it had stuck itself again on another finger.

Things were looking up.

And then they looked down again. "A tour?" boomed a gruff, militaristic man's voice from another room. It was deep, it was gravely, it was nerve-racking and worst of all, it was familiar.

Dib could literally feel all the blood drain from his body.

He followed the sound of thumping footsteps into the room and stopped breathing. He was completely frozen, incapable of turning around.

"Well, whatda yah know?" spoke Police Chief Slab Rankle, undiagnosed psychopath. "Hello there, _boys_."

The feeling that one experienced when bracing the weight of Slab's mighty hand on their shoulder can be compared to physical torture and nothing else. Dib moved so slowly, it was like he was wading through tree sap. It took a moment to fully ingest the sight that was Slab Rankle. The man had one arm in a sling, two Elmo brand band-aids taped to his chin, and still he was as massive and terrifying as ever. Dib paled in sheer girly terror. Zim seemed not to notice where he was.

"I've been informed that you'd like a tour of this _fine_ policing e-sta-blish-ment." Slab went on, " I'd like to personally commend you for taking an interest in the _law_. Without the _law_, you know, there would be _chaos_. In fact, I just got done dealing with two lawbreakers this afternoon. Sure, they slipped by me _this_ time, but you can bet your sweet bunions I'll find them before the week is out. And- _crush them_." His fist curled.

Slab bent over and looked Dib straight in the glasses. He scratched his Elmo covered chin stubble. "Say... You seem familiar." His eyes drifted to Zim, and then his body followed. "And so do _you, _boy. Very familiar."

Zim played the mirror game. He squinted -like Slab- and scratched his chin -like Slab. Dib's horrified eyes bulged clear out of their sockets. The last of his soul drifted from his body.

"BAH! But I don't know anyone that wears hats like those. I must be thinkin' about these two." Slab yanked a flyer out of his shirt. Half a dozen others flew out and drifted to the floor all over the room. Dib choked. "You seen 'em? HAVE YOU SEEN THESE TWO BOYS?-! Have YOU seen them? HAVE yooou?"

Mug shots. His mug shots. His and Zim's. Not breathing. Dib was not breathing. His head shook convulsively.

"HAHA!" Slab burst. He slapped Dib hard enough on the back to throw him off kilter. "Of course not. They're hiding in the woods. If you do see them, do _not_ approach! They are dangerous. Call this number IMMEDIATELY and I will appear to crush them like the little worms they aaaarrrrrre." Slab shoved a card against Dib's chest with the number eight on it. Just the number eight. Dib slipped it in his pocket, hand trembling. "Take these two young gentleman on their tour, Lickins! Off you all go! …I SAID GO!"

And that was that.

On rubber legs, Dib moved where he was lead, Zim trudging gracelessly behind. As they left the room, Slab hollered at their backs, "That's a nice skirt your wearing there, boy!"

"Th-thanks. I- I mean-! It's a _kilt_!"

"And remember!" Spines stiffened all around the room at the sound of that voice. A cool rush of icy earnest determination cut through the air, though the skin, through the bone. "CRUSH THEM!"

_Crush them!_

Crush them…!

Then Slab was gone.

Dear Lord.

Dib's heart started beating again. It was fragile. He gasped. "Psst-" He shook with the whisper. "Zim. I'm… I'm starting to have second thoughts about this. I don't think that Slab thing was a good sign! Maybe we should've waited…!"

"Yurp," Zim said, but he wasn't really paying attention. He was watching Dib's lips move. Too carefully, for Dib's taste. _What are you thinking,_ Dib pondered with distrust, finding some sort of sick comfort in his paranoia. Next thing he knew, though, a long silver tube snaked out of Zim's back and jammed itself in his mouth. Dib sputtered and choked. The distinct taste of metal abused his taste buds and tiny wires assaulted his mouth in a total invasion of privacy. His spine shuddered. He could distinctly feel the little metal things slipping through his teeth and tickling the back of his throat. Zim's eyes flashed bright red behind their contacts as a weak electric jolt shot Dib in the tongue.

"NN!"

It was just one thing after another today, wasn't it?

"_Power outlet not compatible_."

"Wheh?-!"

The pipe retracted into Zim's PAK with a snap. Eyes watering, Dib coughed violently, sticking out his poor tongue. It was numb now. His self-confidence was gone, and now his tongue was numb. Fantastic. Stupid, stupid-

Hey. Zim wasn't looking so good.

The cop turned back. "Huh? Oh, you say somethin'?"

"Eh!" Dib shook his head. Lickins shrugged and walked on.

The lights in the hall flickered. Dib watched Zim's ugly green face for a long time. Then, when Zim turned to look back at him, Dib tried to glare. He did a good job, too, if he did say so himself, but despite it, despite the attempt, he was met with a big empty nothing. No insults, no mocking, no drama, no feeling. Just nothing. Zim's whole body was slumped in on itself, lilting toward the floor as though struggling to remain _on_. It turned Dib's stomach. "Thim?" Dib lisped with his floppy tongue.

"Hn, aah, okay. We're here. First stop, I guess. The bullpen," Drawled Lickins the cop, snapping Dib out of his thoughts. He pointed at a holding cell, inside of which sat four people. A homeless man, a woman with ratty hair, another man with tattoos, and the last guy who was standing with his face pressed again the bars, staring down at Dib and Zim with pleading frantic eyes. "This is where we keep criminals before we know what to do with them."

"I wasn't stalking; I just wanted to know what kind of shampoo she used, I swear!"

Lickins took a long black stick off his belt and stuck the guy in the stomach, looking bored all the while. Stalker guy seized and screamed and foamed at the mouth until he collapsed to the floor of the cell in a smoking heap. Dib curled up in terror.

"Okay," the man whimpered, "I was stalking."

Dib's eyes rolled dead in his sockets as Lickins returned the stick to his belt. There were…a lot of weapons on there. He felt sick.

"'Kay, let's go." They left that room and entered another. "This is where we take the mug shots."

"_Work it_, baby!" A criminal posed suggestively for the photographer. They couldn't have left that room faster if they tried.

"This one is where we drop off evidence. You kids want to see some?"

"Uh... Y-yeah?" Said Dib. Feeling was returning to his tongue in the form of tingles.

The cop reached into a cubby and pulled out a blood-spattered Suck Monkey in a plastic bag. "Wanna touch it?"

Dib's cheeks swelled with vomit. He gulped it down. "Wouldn't our fingerprints, uh, contaminate it?"

"…No."

"I think I'm gonna pass."

Zim grunted.

"Suit yerselves." Lickins said. He stuck his hand in the bag and poked the Suck Monkey. "Heh. Heheh. You kids got any question yet?"

If possible, Dib's face managed to drain itself of even more color. His skin turned nearly translucent. "Um. Yeah? Uh. C-can we see your public safety computer network system? And, uh, also…what operating system do you use? Under what file do you keep criminal records? And do you use any lockout programs to prevent hacking into the database?"

Lickins stared at Dib for a long time.

"Are you sure you don't want to ask me where I got my cool hat?"

Dib pulled a face. During the unsettling description of hand-sewn adventure that they were forced to hear following that question, the world seemed to melt around him. There was a police officer peeking at them from over the wall of a cubicle, looking both suspicious and cowardly. The plan was not going well.

Zim groaned. He shook his alien head and pressed both hands to his temples, eyes spinning in their sockets. Dib turned to him fast. His body almost ruptured in relief. A bit of Zim's usual arrogant posture was returning, his expression clearing with a surge of its usual consciousness. He looked around, as though not quite sure where he was, but he was mentally _there_. For that moment, Dib cheered a little on the inside. That had to be a good sign. Zim was fine and everything was going to be okay because the stupid alien was back to normal. "Stink boy?"

They could do this.

"-Which is why," Lickins babbled, "I decided never to force my dog to play Tetris with me again. You know, because-"

Zim twitched, slumped, and went dull again. Dib bit his lip. He clutched the shirt over his heart.

Or maybe not.

"Fast," Zim slurred. Dib gave a start. He heard Zim's hushed voice over the cop as though it was being blasted over a loudspeaker. Why? Dib had no idea. But he clung to it. "Fast now, smell-human. Or Zim… Zim won't be on no more."

Lickins stopped talking. "What'd he say? Yo, kid. What'd you say?"

The way Dib looked at Zim in that moment was peculiar, even for _him_. He spoke without turning his eyes away. They were intense and set. "He wanted to know if we could check out the surveillance room."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess so. This way."

Head cleared, Dib's footsteps were loud and resolute. Anxieties made him wish he was dead, but what could you do, eh? He was going to finish this. Lickins knocked on a shut door and it was opened seconds later. Just a crack.

The two guards inside were pale and homely, skin glowing unnaturally blue amidst the glow of the TV's. "What do you want?"

"Kids want to see the monitors."

"What's the password."

"Squishy, squishy."

The man stepped aside and let them in. "Enter."

They were in.

Dib looked around himself at all the screens, eyes widening in awe. There must have been cameras everywhere. There was a screen of one pointed at the front desk, a few more showed ones in the bathrooms, another watching them at that very moment. Dib pivoted around to find the camera and backpedaled. It was pointed two inches from his face. How had he missed THAT?

"Pretty cool, huh?" The creepy guard asked. His partner was watching them all with disinterest. "Yeah, we pretty much have the best job in the station. We're like ninjas. Always watching. Hoowaaaah. Look. Lemme show you some stuff." He rolled his wheelie chair to a screen in the upper left corner. "See that? That's the break room. They're gonna put out the donuts soon. We know. We're always the first one's there."

"Aw, Paul, so that's why I never get any. You jerkface." Lickins was bitter about this.

"And…" Dib said, staring at another monitor entirely. Zim was panting behind him, rushing him along. "Is this one…? That's the main computer room, right?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. It's got everything in there. All of our files, the _prisoners_ files, files on everyone in town. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but we have files on everyone in America, even if they'd never done anything wrong. Ninjaaas!" Dib turned around, horrified. But that wasn't important right now.

"So, uh…Where is it?"

"Down the hall to the right. But it's really not very exciting. You know what is? Donuts!" He pointed at a monitor with a sad looking woman carrying a box into the break room. Her eyes were leaking constant tears. But she had donuts, so, "Let's go, go, go!"

"Wait!" Lickins yelled, "I'm getting there first!"

"Nuh uh, Lickins! Someone has to stay with the kiddies!" Jerkface guard wiggled his fingers and giggled. He and his partner took off out of that room like cheetahs, leaving an angry Lickins at their heels.

Dib's nerves burned with opportunity. Now that the room was emptied of all but three, Dib could tell Lickins was trying not to glare at them. He tapped his fingers together. "You know what, Mr. Lickins? You can go. Zim and I'll be okay here. We'll watch the monitors for you, right Zim?"

"Heh!" A rush of air left Zim's throat.

"I'm not supposed to leave you by yourselves." If there had been a clod on the floor, he would have kicked it. His whole body screamed DEJECTION.

"Aw, common. You can trust us," Dib coerced.

Dib nudged Lickins in the stomach, pointing to the monitor where the two guards were scarfing down donuts and laughing like fiends. Lickins twitched. "MM! Eh, oh! Alright! Don't go nowhere- I'll be right back! I'm a-comin', _donuts_!"

Dib's grin was pure evil. He cackled to himself and shut the door. Alone. THEY WERE ALONE! Bwahahaha! Hah! Haha. "Now what do we do?" he looked around. "Zim, what do we do?" Zim's eyes were closed. He was breathing heavily and one hand was bracing him against the wall. His body was shaking. Dib's eyes widened. "Ah! Ah! Okay, uh! Destroy the surveillance monitors! Then we go there and delete the files! Yes!" Dib grabbed the monitor with both hands and waited. "But how do I DO That?-!" He picked up the wheelie chair and paused to build the nerve. Then he chucked it at the monitor with all his might.

It bounced off.

"Geez, I need to work out more. GAAH-! Now what!-?" Dib hyperventilated. In a panic, he whirled around the small room in spastic circles, looking around, babbling insanely, running face first into the camera that was hanging from the ceiling. He grunted and toppled head over heels.

Maybe it was hopeless. He groaned, rubbing his nose and letting his vision clear again. When it did, he found himself staring up at a giant bright red SELF-DESTRUCT button. It monopolized most of the fourth wall. "Oh, hey, lookit that."

Why there was even a self-destruct button built in to the surveillance center of a police station, Dib didn't care to ask. He pushed it and smiled.

Then he screamed. He ran the heck out of there.

He went back in, still screaming, grabbed Zim by his coat, and dragged him out seconds later.

That was how Dib found himself barreling down a police station hallway, screaming at the top of his lungs and dragging an alien face-down behind him on a Tuesday evening in September. Oddly, not an unusual night by his standards. That concerned him.

An explosion rocked the building. Dib went flying into a wall. Zim just rolled a little. "Oh crud monkeys!" was not a dramatic enough a statement to describe the chaos that followed, but Dib said it anyway.

People were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, screaming and pushing people down with no regard for anyone's safety but their own. Fun to watch, not to experience.

Dib lost his bearings. He couldn't remember which way to turn. Left or right, left or right? He looked both ways and was relieved to see a label on one of the doors reading _Computer_. "Come on, Zim! This is it! You have to get up!" He grabbed Zim by the arm and pulled. He hauled the alien off the floor and to his feet, but as soon as Zim started standing of his own power, he swayed like a drunk. Dib grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him through the panicking masses, right into the computer room. It was empty. The computer was off. Zim collapsed.

"Zim, seriously! Get up! Use your PAK thingy and crack the system! Just get me to the main page and I'll do the rest!"

Zim's head lifted from the floor with what looked like far too much effort. Weakly, he lifted an arm toward the computer. A sleek metal tentacle followed its lead and snuck out of his PAK at a snail's pace, twitching, falling at intervals. Dib jumped in place and urged him to move faster. Cops were running around outside the door, yelling now, "Find the kids! The kids did it!" "Check the surveillance cameras!" "Hey, that's a good idea- WAIT! They just blew up, you moron!"

With a flash and a bright crackling spark of light from his back, Zim's body went stiff. The tentacle in the air froze in place, inches from the computer systems unit.

Dib didn't move.

He watched Zim drop. Arm, tentacle, head- they just went limp all at once.

"No!"

Zim hit the floor.

Dib fell to his knees and picked Zim up by the shoulders and shook him, furious, panicking, hating the way Zim's stupid body moved like a ragdoll in his hands. "Wake up, you moron! Lizard! Scum of the universe! Get your idiot self UP! Or I'll…! I'll expose you! I'll expose you for the alien menace that you are right in this police station!" Dib moaned in distress, dropping Zim and hugging himself around his stomach. They shouldn't have done this.

"You brainless alien," Dib choked. "Zim… Wake up."

Zim's body remained slumped and lifeless at Dib's feet. Dead. He looked dead.

Dib curled into himself. He dragged his knees to his chest and bit down on one knee. Weakly, he beat a fist against his temple again and again. "For both of our sakes… Wake up."

A soft groan, deep in Dib's throat, grew in volume with his frustration, with his anger, with his fear and worry and everything else. "Zim…ZIM…Wake-…" The words started getting stuck. It was too much. All of it! He-! Dib was going to-! "Wake UP!" He lashed out with one foot and struck Zim in the head.

Zim's body rolled with the force. His arms twitched.

"Zim?"

Clickclickclickclick!

"What is that?"

CLICK!

Zim jumped to his feet. His eyes snapped open wide and unseeing. He cocked his neck to the side as though in pain. Dib scrambled back.

Zim's head shifted back into place. His eyes locked on Dib.

Dib threw his arms up, feeling threatened. There was something terrifying about the way Zim was looking at him then. It wasn't Zim. It wasn't- there was something so distinctly gone about it; cold, clinical, empty. The color in Zim's contacts was missing, Dib realized. It was just plain, stony gray. Still, Dib didn't think he'd ever feel so relieved to see the alien alive. He stood up and looked to the police computer.

It was still off, staring at them, vulnerable and open to their attack.

Dib turned back to Zim. He stared for a long time. "We have to get out of here," he said.

The computer would wait.

Zim's blind eyes turned on Dib. They narrowed just a bit.

_Analyzing_…

"ZIM!"

_Human. Big head. Label: DIB. Status: enemy. Inhibiting search for power._

"Yo! Alien? What's wrong with you? Don't do this now! Seriously, snap out of it! We need to go!"

_Terminate? Processing..._

Dib waved a frantic hand in front of Zim's face. That expression was freaking him out. This was perhaps _the_ worst possible moment for Zim to finally lose it. He realized this was why Zim had been so desperate to find a power source, so that THIS wouldn't happen. Dib huffed and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him furiously until his head flopped back and forth. Nothing. Still no Zim in there.

Whatever. At least he was up. Dib dropped him and Zim hit the floor until he picked himself back up.

Alarms whooped outside their door, making him jump. With a curse, Dib took Zim by his gloved, three-fingered hand and yanked hard, harder than necessary as it turned out. He ran through the door and right into the chaos. They had to get out of there. Zim followed him, running without much fuss. That, too, made Dib panic. No time to think about it.

…_.Termination not recommended_.

_Re-processing._ _Analysis of subject_ DIB _required_.

Dib yelped, ducking around a corner at the last second and hauling Zim back onto a wall beside him. His chest was heaving with heavy breaths, and he peaked back around to see that the police he'd hidden from were still there. Now what? Oh, this wasn't good. He opened his mouth to speak when he turned to Zim, but saw that empty stare focused back on him and knew talking was worthless. His stomach pitched that much more. What the hell was _wrong_ with the moron? Why did he have to shut down _now_?

_Analysis…_

"Zim!" Dib whispered, shaking his shoulders. That jerk was doing it on purpose! Dib growled. He looked down and blanched at the sight of his own hand, still wrapped around Zim's glove like a vice. With a sound of disgust, he disentangled them, wiping his hand on his shirt. Stupid alien was going to get them both caught.

Dib should ditch him before it was too late.

_Conflicting response. Reanalyzing… _

He stared hard at Zim's seemingly lifeless shell of a body, which continued to stare back at him in the most disturbing way. With a grimace, he paused. Eh. He couldn't just… leave Zim behind _here_. You know. Because if he was going to turn him in to the Swollen Eyeball, he couldn't let Zim get captured by those _idiots_ first. Yeah. Dib was going to get the credit for _this_ space monster all on his own.

_Analysis Complete. _

"Hey! There they are!"

Dib gasped. Without even looking to see what direction that cop had been pointing, Dib grabbed Zim by the wrist and started running, chanting desperately for Zim to wake the hell _up_. Of course, that didn't work. Zim continued trailing after him like a robot, steps inhumanly ridged and disjointed. It was like dragging around a zombie. Dib turned another hallway, yelled out, and turned back the way he came.

"Uh, wait! _STOP_!"

Dib had run right to them. "Now would be a really good time to _snap out of it_, Zim!"

_Subject DIB: _

_Indispensable. _

"You two! Stop! Stop where you are!"

_Response: protect for survival. _

"Yaaah!" Dib shrieked, skidding to a halt right in the middle of the headquarters main room. The carpet smoked under his feet. Why, of all places, had he run _there_?-! He froze. A dozen and a half cops and suits froze, too. Dib caught their eyes and theirs caught his. "Um…"

"Get 'em!"

Dib screamed. He tried to turn and run the way he came, but around the corner ran the same two cops that'd been chasing him earlier. He stopped again. Looked one way. Advancing cops. The other way. Advancing cops. His head pivoted from one side to the other (faster, faster) little sounds of distress escaping his throat. He turned to Zim and was met with those same cold, dull eyes, staring as if asking him, _'what will you do now?' _and urging him to have an answer. Dib bit his bottom lip. He didn't know. He didn't know! He cringed as the cops jumped at him and squeezed his eyes shut, arms protecting his face with one final yell.

Bumpbumpbump. Thump.

Silence_._

Dib waited. Nothing was happening, but he didn't move.

He was mildly confused. Those cops were taking a lot longer to catch him than he thought they would. Warily, he cracked one eyelid, and was immediately blinded by a bright pink light. He blinked, both eyes shooting open of their own accord. A hand came up and tried to block some out, but that glow was coming from all sides. He squinted, eyes adjusting.

"Zim?"

Slowly, Zim's head turned. His eyes blinked slowly. They were still dead.

Dib looked around in astonishment at the semi-transparent force field coming from the tips of Zim's PAK legs, separating them from the cops.

"_Locating exit."_

"What?" Dib asked, more to himself than Zim. That voice wasn't…right. Zim's head move mechanically, as though it was being remote controlled.

"_Exit found."_

That voice again. What was it about that voice? Dib's eyes narrowed. It was Zim's, but also… _so_ not Zim's. "Sp-" Dib swallowed. "Space Boy?"

Minutes later, Dib found himself being dropped unceremoniously on the cement of a back street, startled by the blackness of the outside. The sun had obviously set long ago. Zim's spider legs retracted back into his utility PAK, and his knees hit the floor as though he lacked the strength to stand. How had they gotten out? What happened?

"_Ally Dib," _Zim rasped. Dib jumped out of his skin. That tone sent chills down his spine. "_Orders: seek and secure safe zone. Power level critical. Immediate charge required. Estimated time before final shut down: one hundred and twenty-two minutes."_

"One hundred and-? Ngh-! Oh, what?-! What am I supposed to _do_?-!"

"_Charge needed. Power critical," _Zim repeated_, "Locate power source_. _Now_."

Dib gaped, his eyes literally bulging out of his sockets. "Who… Who _are_ you?"

He shouldn't have expected an answer. Those vacant eyes didn't even acknowledge that Dib spoke, and it made his stomach knot horribly. He took Zim by the wrist and started running. Running. He didn't know where. Anywhere, he figured. A safe zone. What made a safe zone? First thing that popped into his head was a hospital, but that wouldn't work. Aliens and hospitals didn't mix. A police station- no. Hehe. That was crazy. Oh, what the heck was he supposed to…to-! Dib's eyes landed on a huge building with a neon sign. A hotel.

Past the sound of wind rushing in their ears, Dib almost didn't hear Zim when he finally responded, "I am Zim."


End file.
